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OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/outofwayplacesOOfriz 




A Norwegian Belief 



OUT OF THE WAY 
PLACES 



WM. G. FRIZELL 



Wn0ttam 
ttom PS0t0gtap!j0 




Daytcn, Ohio 

PreM of United Bretliren Publishing House 

Nineteen Hundred and Nine 



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Copyright, 1909, by Wm. G. Frixell 






IViAY 28 l^^ 









40 



i 



PREFACE 

OFF and on, for some years, in the summer 
months, I have stolen away from my law- 
office, and have crossed the seas and roamed strange 
lands. On those travels I have written, irregularly, 
many letters to the papers of Dayton, describing my 
observations, experiences, and sensations. These 
letters have not always dealt with the most impor- 
tant objects, but with those that momentarily ap- 
pealed to me. 

From these letters, describing the odds and ends 
of travel, I have selected some telling of less familiar 
places, and these I have combined and revised, and 
now put forth in this little book. 

My motive for these travels has been the simple 
love of travel, and is expressed in these lines from 
Kipling's poem, "The Feet of the Young Men" : 

"He must go — go — go away from here! 

On the other side the world he's overdue, 
*Send your road is clear before you when 
the old Spring-fret comes o'er you 

And the Red Gods call for you! 

* * * * 

"Unto each the voice and vision; unto 
each his spoor and sign — 
Lonely mountain in the Northland, misty 

sweat bath 'neath the line — 
And to each a man that knozvs 
his naked soul!" 

Wm. G. Frizell. 
Dayton, Ohio. 



CONTENTS 



I. Japan — Dreamland 1 

II. Religious Japan 25 

III. China's Capital 37 

IV. The Norwegian Fjords 54 

V. Spitzeergen and the Ice- Pack 67 

VI. Through Norway 80 

VII. Across Sweden and Denmark 92 

VIIL Scotch Experiences 107 

IX. A Literary Pilgrimage 119 

X. Irish Odds and Ends 126 

XI. A Moorish City 137 

XII. Seville 146 

XIII. A Bull Fight 154 

XIV. The Alhambra 160 

XV. Italian Fragments 170 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Abbotsford 

A Bull Fight 

A Japanese Group 

A Norwegian Belle 

Birthplace of Robert Burns 

Hamlet's Castle 

In Sunny Europe 

International Group on the '"Neptun" 

Kissing the Blarney Stone 

Laplanders at Tromso 

Moorish Women 

The Midnight Sun Near the Ice- Pack 

The Mosque of Cordova 

The Raftsund 

The Troltanj) 

Water Carrier and Pigskin Water Bottle 



OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 



CHAPTER I. 

JAPAN— DREAMLAND. 

JAPAN is dreamland. It does not seem like a 
real land. So beautiful and picturesque are 
the islands, so small and unique the people, 
so artistic their creations, so fascinating and yet 
so strange is everything that it seems as if it 
must be a land conjured up in one's fancy. 

Japan is called the "Land of the Rising Sun," 
but like the land of dreams, it is also located in 
the region of the setting sun. I found it by follow- 
ing the setting sun for twenty-one days across 
land and sea, following it beyond flowery Hawaii, 
the paradise of the Pacific, and beyond the 180th 
meridian, where a day is dropped from the cal- 
endar, and the far, far West becomes the Far 
East. Here, rising out of a warm, rich blue sea, 
wrapped in a hazy atmosphere that makes it an 
artist's paradise, are great green islands, some 
three to four thousand in numbers. 

Frequently the first glimpse of these islands, 
as one approaches Yokohama, is caught not by 
looking off toward the horizon, but by looking 



2 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

skyward. Then there is seen above the clouds 
the summit of Japan's sacred mountain, Fuji- 
yama, which lifts its head nearly thirteen thou- 
sand feet, and wears around its brow an almost 
constant wreath of mists. As I saw from the 
steamer's deck, across the seas, up in the heav- 
ens, above the clouds, as if suspended in the air, 
the great summit of this magnificent mountain, 
it seemed to me that it was a fitting representa- 
tive of Japan, which does not seem like a part of 
this earth of ours, but rather a land ethereal, a 
land of fancy, or a land of dreams. 

As is proper, too, for dreamland, Japan is 
woman's land. If I were asked to paint a picture 
representing, in a single figure, Japan, I would 
paint the picture of a smiling Japanese girl. 
With her sweetness, mildness, and brightness, 
she best represents the fascination of Japan. 
Japan is woman's land, as China is man's land. 
Japan is the land of Miss Cherry Blossom, and 
of Madame Chrysanthemum, while China is the 
land of John Chinaman. Master Cherry Blossom, 
Mr. Chrysanthemum, and Mrs. John Chinaman 
are all secondary personages. Curiously, in Japan 
men wear women's clothes, and in China women 
wear men's clothes. In Japan men wear the 
long-skirted kimono, while in China women wear 
broad pantaloons. 

To travelers, the Japanese girls and women are 
among the most fascinating in the world. Their 



JAPAN— DREAMLAND 3 

charm is peculiar to themselves. It results large- 
ly from an extreme development of the so-called 
feminine qualities of mildness, kindliness, and 
sympathy. It is expressed in their ever-ready 
smile. Their smile is one of bright, curious, 
kindly, sympathetic interest. 

No visitor ever forgets the sensations and im- 
pressions of his first night in that strange coun- 
try, especially if he meets Japanese girls and 
women. After dinner, at the luxurious Grand 
Hotel, several of us stepped out upon the ve- 
randa to listen to the music of a Japanese 
orchestra. Soon some jinrikisha men persuaded 
us to take a ride. Seated in these strange vehi- 
cles, with lighted Japanese paper lanterns swing- 
ing from the shafts, drawn by bobbing bronze 
men, we dashed through several deserted streets 
in the European quarter, and suddenly emerged 
into a crowded, busy Japanese city. Here was a 
dense city of little yellow men and women, glid- 
ing along unpaved streets, lined on either side 
with unsubstantial two-story frame houses, with 
the fronts all open, and streets and houses all 
lighted with picturesque paper lanterns. While 
these little yellow people, in a matter-of-fact way, 
were shopping, marketing, and soberly attending 
to the serious duties of life, yet in their curious 
costumes, and in the mingled light of the gaily 
colored Japanese paper lanterns, they seemed to 
be denizens of a different world. 



4 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

Up and down these crowded streets we rode, 
looking, wondering, dreaming, until suddenly 
the wise jinrikisha men dropped their shafts in 
the open front of a celebrated tea house. Here 
we were greeted instantly by a little, low-bowing 
gentleman, the personification of hospitable 
politeness, and cordially bade welcome. Clum- 
sily dismounting for the first time from a jin- 
rikisha, w^e were escorted through a hall, scrupu- 
lously neat, to a large and airy dining-room. 
While the supper was being arranged, about a 
dozen geisha girls in their pretty costumes came 
in and entertained us. We were not particularly 
enchanted with their music, but between per- 
formances these little girls delighted us by their 
tittering, giggling, and broken English small 
talk. Shortly, a light supper of rice, fish, and 
sweet cakes was served, and we had our first 
lesson from laughing teachers in the use of chop- 
sticks. Until late we lingered, and when we 
returned to the hotel it was long I lay awake, 
my brain all awhirl with the memory of the 
strange, fantastic scenes of the first day and 
evening in Japan, and in a sort of doze I won- 
dered whether I was in a real land or in a truly 
dreamland. That wonder never wore off. 

Japan is the most curious civilized country in 
the world. From the ship's approach to Yoko- 
hama until its departure everything is curious. 
From the almost naked sampan men, upon whose 



JAPAN— DREAMLAND 5 

bronze muscles glistened the sun, who poled out 
in their unpainted boats to meet our ship, and 
who, on account of a passing shower, put on 
thatched straw hats and thatched straw coats, 
that so completely hid them that they looked like 
little moving straw stacks, to the miniature 
policemen who sailed down the bay with ouf 
departing ship, and stopped us at the entrance to 
take off stowaways, all is curious. 

The vehicles are curious. The usual beast of 
burden is man. He pushes the carts, pulls the 
carriages, carries loads on his head, or suspended 
at the ends of poles that are slung across his 
shoulders. The favorite vehicle is the jinrikisha, 
which is a baby cab on buggy wheels, with 
shafts, and pulled by men. The Japanese word 
means "man-pull-car," and some American girl 
has transposed it into "pull-man-car," or Pullman 
car of the Far East. It was invented about 1870 
by a Mr. Goble, an American Baptist missionary, 
with an invalid wife, and it at once became very 
popular in the Far East. In Tokio alone there 
are over forty thousand of them. 

Riding in these vehicles has a certain thrill of 
excitement, for the men usually run, with their 
heads down, through the narrow crowded streets, 
and their object seems to be to come as near 
every obstacle as possible without hitting it. 
One day I was being taken to the railway station, 
and as down the narrow street my man went 



6 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

bobbing along with head down, I noticed another 
one coming in the opposite direction in the same 
manner. In his jinrikisha sat a young English 
lady. When we concluded that a head-on col- 
lision was inevitable, both of us grabbed the sides 
of our vehicles, but the men quickly veered and 
passed in safety. After that I felt that 
jinrikisha men never collide, until I saw the flar- 
ing headlines in the "J^P^^ Mail" : "A Jinrikisha 
Accident. A Noted Traveler Severely Injured." 

One reason why man carries the burdens in 
Japan is that animals are few. In a week's time 
in Kyoto, a city the size of Cincinnati, I saw but 
five horses, and two of them were in a circus. 
Horses are comparatively rare. Up in the moun- 
tains around Nikko there are a number of small 
ponies. The streets of Japanese cities in the 
interior are almost horseless. 

Cattle are kept mostly for the foreigners, as 
the Japanese do not eat beef, or milk and butter, 
as we do. In a semi-foreign Japanese inn at 
Nara, I was dining with some Americans, when 
the hotel cat came into the rooim. An American 
girl, noticing a little milk in the mug, poured 
it into a saucer and put it upon the floor for the 
cat to drink. While the cat was enjoying the 
feast of its life, there entered the wife of the 
proprietor. As soon as she saw the cat drinking 
milk she threw up her hands in horror, and for 
half an hour she went around mutterinsf about 



JAPAN— DREAMLAND 7 

the dreadful extravagance of the Americans who 
would give milk to a cat. These cats, in passing 
I might say, are short-tailed, much like rabbits. 

The Japanese inns are curious and furnish a 
succession of surprises. My first stay at a purely 
Japanese inn was at a small, out-of-the-way inter- 
ior city to which we were sent on account of a 
landslide ahead on the railway. The inn, like 
most Japanese buildings, was only two stories 
high, and built of wood because of the frequency 
and severity of earthquakes. At the entrance 
we removed our shoes and gave them to the serv- 
ants. On account of the soft reed mats that 
cover Japanese floors, shoes can never be worn 
into inns, residences, temples, theaters, and often- 
times not into stores. Our foreign shoes are an 
incumbrance in Japan, and I finally seldom laced 
them, but had them ready to slip off. The Jap- 
anese wear a little block of wood called a "geta" 
with stilts beneath, and a double cord that passes 
between the big toe and the next and then over 
the foot, so that they can readily step out of their 
shoes. 

On entering the inn the five Americans in our 
party were assigned a wing, which consisted of 
one long room with two end walls, but no side 
walls. There was no furniture in it, except the 
mat upon the floor. There were no chairs, as the 
Japanese do not sit on chairs, the Chinese being 
the only Asiatics who do. We accordingly sat 



8 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

down in the middle of the floor. Soon maids 
brought us fresh kimonos to put on, sweet cakes 
to eat, and a brazier in which to light our pipes 
or cigarets. The Japanese use long, straight 
reed pipes with a very small bowl, which requires 
constant refilling. 

At supper-time small individual taborets were 
brought in, and the inn furnished us with 
rice, chicken, and tgg omelet, while we had some 
bread with us. Towards bed-time servants put 
up paper screens, fitting in grooves in the floor 
and ceiling for outside walls, and likewise put 
paper screens crosswise in other grooves to make 
the dividing walls of the four rooms into which 
thie large one was converted. 

For a bed a quilt was placed upon the floor, the 
Japanese use no bedstead, a second was rolled 
up for a pillow, and a third was spread over us. 
The Japanese do not use our pillow, but have 
instead a little wooden pillow, covered with a 
cloth, about the size of a rail. It looks so much 
like a railroad rail, that the story runs that when 
the first railroad was built by foreigners in China, 
the Chinese, who have the same kind of a pillow, 
thought that the rails were pillows placed there 
for their comfort, and insisted upon sleeping upon 
them, so that trains could not run at night. The 
reason for the use of such a pillow is that the 
Japanese and Chinese women arrange their hair 
in such elaborate and fantastic forms. They dress 



JAPAN— DREAMLAND 9 

it only once or twice a week, so they require a 
pillow that will not muss their hair. 

Shortly after I had retired, I was startled at 
finding one of my paper walls opening, and a 
couple of Japanese maids coming in and begin- 
ning to carry off my clothes. I called to my 
friend who could speak Japanese, and the maids 
told him that as the wooden exterior screens 
were not in use, that robbers could easily enter 
through the paper screens, and steal our clothes 
and baggage. We yielded our belongings, but 
the two American ladies insisted upon taking 
their umbrellas to bed with them to fight the 
robbers when they entered. 

No robbers appeared, but in the morning the 
problem was to get dressed. I called for my 
clothes, and was soon surprised at noticing a 
servant carrying them to the ladies' room. Men 
and women wear practically the same clothes in 
Japan. When my clothes were delivered to me 
the maids of the inn began promenading through 
my room. A wall would suddenly open, and a 
couple of maids appear. After gesticulating them 
out of the room I would hardly have time to 
jump up and close the wall before having to dive 
back into bed on account of the opening of an 
opposite wall. Finally, between visits, I man- 
aged to get into my clothes. We were the first 
foreign curiosities that had come under the 
close observation of these inn servants. 



10 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

Before breakfast each of our party was pre- 
sented by the proprietor with a tooth-brush, in 
the shape of a stick about eight inches long, with 
one end crushed into fine fiber, and also a small 
package of tooth-powder. When we paid our 
bill, which was very reasonable, we made the 
proprietor a present of the customary tip, and 
he sent to us, at the train, by special messenger, 
a high-sounding note of thanks for honoring his 
inn with our patronage, and inviting us to return. 
Subsequent experiences in Japanese inns were 
very pleasant, and one soon prefers them to the 
large foreign hotels of the cities. 

As the landslide was not removed, we took on 
the train, to transport ourselves and baggage 
across the country to another railway, some ten 
jinrikisha men with their vehicles. We traveled 
by rail forty miles, then we left the train and went 
by a round-about route, over roads about four 
feet wide, through a country studded with neat, 
clean villages. News of our coming must have 
gone ahead, for the village populations were lined 
up to see the strange caravan. These people 
probably had never been visited by foreigners 
before. Our young American lady, with her 
big hat and feathers, attracted more attention 
than a goddess of liberty in a circus parade. The 
Japanese women wear no hats. The villagers 
presented to us as interesting a scene as we to 
them. They were there in their clothes and 



JAPAN— DREAMLAND 11 

half clothes. Clothes have not long been re- 
garded as a necessity in Japan, and they are 
now worn by adults with considerable variety as 
to amount, and by small children frequently not 
at all. These villagers looked like a hard-work- 
ing set of people. They received us pleas- 
antly, with smiles. Much of the country through 
which we rode was a beautiful rice-growing 
country; the rice fields were covered with about 
five inches of water. 

Finally we were all ferried across a wide, swift 
river in sampans, and reached a little village on 
the railway. As we had to wait here for about 
two hours we went to the village inn. It was 
built at the corner of two streets, and the first 
floor consisted of one large room with both walls 
on the sides towards the streets removed. In 
our stocking feet we sat on the floor, while a 
curious crowd of about fifty stood in the streets 
and watched us. We still had some bread with 
us, so we bought a sort of Japanese honey, made 
from the bean, some large peaches with a very red 
meat, and some mineral water, and thus impro- 
vised a lunch, which the crowd with interest en- 
joyed watching us eat. Above our heads swung 
several straw cages in which were imprisoned 
grasshoppers, that chirped at intervals. In a 
distant part of the room sat a number of Japanese 
guests waiting for the train, one of whom, anxious 
to keep his kimono in good condition, took it off 



12 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

and folded it up in a handkerchief, and sat in his 
loin-cloth. Frequently that is done on the trains. 
Altogether we were in strange and curious envi- 
ronments. 

The Japanese inns have a number of peculiar- 
ities. One of them is the bath. The Japanese 
aire the cleanest people in the world. With them, 
cleanliness is more than godliness, for they bathe 
oftener than they pray. The story is told that 
in one of the villages the people apologized for 
not being as clean as usual, saying that at that 
time of year they were so busy that they could 
take only two baths a day, while ordinarily they 
took five baths daily. In Tokio there are about 
eight hundred public baths, at which over half a 
million baths are taken daily. So fond are the 
Japanese of water that in all contracts for service, 
even in those of coolies outside of Japan, it is 
always specified in the agreement the number of 
gallons of hot water the person is to have weekly 
for bathing purposes. 

The Japanese bath is peculiar in a number of 
respects. The water is usually about 112° Fah- 
renheit, so that the first time a foreigner steps 
into the tub he jumps out quickly for fear that 
he will be boiled before he can get out. A 
foreigner, however, soon learns to enjoy it. 
Then a person always soaps and washes himself 
before he gets into the tub, and there instead of 
lying down, he sits up with the water about to 



JAPAN— DREAMLAND 13 

his chin. In Japanese families and country inns 
the water is usually changed but once a day. 
All the members of a family, or guests, take turns 
about bathing in the same water. I prefered the 
first turn, but sometimes had the last; however, 
the water is always clear. Men and women fre- 
quently bathe in the same bathroom at the 
same time. In Tokio the public baths have only 
a lattice screen between the bathers and the 
street. In harmony with European ideas, the 
law now requires a partition between the men 
and women in the bathrooms, but as the law is 
not very specific the partition varies in size. In 
one inn bathroom I discovered that the partition 
consisted of a stick across the bathtub. 

Another noticeable Japanese characteristic at 
the inns, and, in fact, everywhere, is the polite- 
ness. The Japanese are not only the cleanest, 
but also the politest people in the world. It is 
an easy, good-natured politeness that invites and 
flatters, rather than the stately, formal politeness 
of the Spaniards, which always puts one on his 
dignity. The Japanese politeness is partly the 
result of religious teaching, and partly of neces- 
sity. For centuries their religion has emphasized 
that it is always one's duty to have a bright and 
cheerful countenance, regardless of one's personal 
griefs. It is told of old General Nogi, the captor 
of Port Arthur, that after the death of his only 
two sons, he still publicly bore a happy counte- 



14 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

nance, although, frequently, when alone, he 
would be detected with tear-stained eyes. So 
bright faces are found everywhere. On every 
face there is an incipient smile. In out-of-the- 
way parts of Japan, when followed by a curious 
crowd, I would say "Ohio," which means "good- 
morning," and provoke them all to smiles and 
bows. These Japanese bows, too, are quite 
elaborate. There is usually a series of them, 
each bow being lower than the preceding one, 
until the head almost touches the ground. I 
could never be as polite as my Japanese acquain- 
tances. 

Their politeness is almost a matter of necessity. 
The density of population and the lack of privacy 
would make life unendurable if it were not for 
the politeness. Japan has a population equal to 
half that of the United States, crowded into an 
area not as large as the single State of California. 
There are people, people everywhere. 

Then there can be no privacy in houses where 
the interior walls are paper screens, and the ex- 
terior walls are taken down in daytime. The 
paper screens are little protection against the 
curious, for a pair of fingers moistened by the 
lips will readily make peep-holes. A traveler is 
sometimes surprised at finding his room sur- 
rounded by these peep-holes. A little piece of 
paper quickly mends the punctured screen. 
Everything is open to the public. The houses 



JAPAN— DREAMLAND 15 

have not even dark closets in which to hang 
family skeletons. 

Possibly this lack of privacy and generally 
crowded condition is one of the causes of the 
Japanese babies being so excessively polite that 
they never cry. Scientists explain the goodness 
of the Japanese babies on the ground that they 
have not the nerves of Occidental babies. Think 
of the consternation in these paper-walled houses 
that a healthy American baby, with lusty lungs, 
would create ! These Japanese babies, tied on 
the backs of their not much bigger brothers and 
sisters, all day will look, laugh, play, and sleep, 
but seldom cry. They are the world's model 
babies. 

Perhaps another reason why the babies are so 
good, is that Japan is a sort of children's para- 
dise. There are more cheap, attractive, ingen- 
ious toys for children in Japan than in any other 
country. There are attractive toy-stands every- 
where. There are doll stores, crowded with an 
infinite variety of dolls and their outfits. The 
dolls are usually sold in boxes with a half dozen 
wigs for the doll. The wigs are made to repre- 
sent the hair arrangement at different ages. 
Sometimes the toys are puzzling. I noticed a 
vendor with a tray of moving vehicles. Wonder- 
ing how such small mechanical toys could be 
constructed so cheaply, I examined them and 
found that the motive power was furnished by 



16 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

our common house fly. A little wax was put on 
the fly's head, and then it was harnessed to the 
vehicle. The bamboo toy houses are so attrac- 
tive that almost every foreigner purchases one. 

Children have their annual toy festivals. The 
girls' holiday is on March 3, when there are 
doll bazaars everywhere, and the girls are given 
a great variety of dolls, while the boys' holiday 
is May 5, when they receive more masculine 
toys. 

Little girls, on festal occasions, are dressed in 
bright kimonos, with brighter obis, and have their 
faces painted and enameled, until they look like 
flower gardens. These Japanese children are 
bright and attractive, and the ease and accuracy 
with which many of them speak English, which 
they have studied in school, is surprising. 
Teachers state that these children are quick and 
unusually obedient. The boys are so excessively 
patriotic that if a class is asked what is the 
highest purpose in life, instantly they will 
answer, it is td die for their emperor. The 
patriotic martial spirit is engendered in the 
schools. 

Japan is often called "toy-land." The reason is 
that everything is an object of delight, and al- 
most everything is diminutive. The people, the 
houses, their vehicles and trains are on such a 
reduced scale that they suggest toys. The 
people are so small that when they put on official 






■^^i 



p 




JAPAN— DREAMLAND 17 

costumes they frequently look like caricatures. 
On a little bridge near my hotel in Tokio stood 
a little policeman with a little sword, who was 
so attractive in his littleness that I never passed 
him without being inclined to put my arm about 
him and carry him off as a souvenir. Although 
I knew I would have caught a Tartar, yet I 
never regarded him seriously. So the casual 
traveler seldom regards Japan seriously. It is 
only a great toy-land for his amusement. The 
light little houses, with the little back-yard parks, 
with th^ir little lakes, cascades, and century-old 
dwarf pines, with the little people moving hither 
and thither, eating off of little dishes, drinking 
out of little cups, impress the traveler that Japan 
is only a play land for grown up children. To 
be children again with such beautiful toys de- 
lights travelers. Travelers who are not looking 
for large things find Japan a land of constant 
delight. 

Japan is also pleasure land. There is pleasure 
in everything, even in shopping, in Japan. 
Kyoto, Japan's ancient capital, is the most de- 
lightful shopping-place in the world. Bargain 
prices for the most artistic articles, exhibited by 
the most engaging Oriental shopmen, will tempt 
the emptying of almost any purse. The delicate, 
exquisite cloissonne, which in recent years has 
been greatly improved ; ancient satsuma which is 
becoming so rare as to be practically unpurchas- 



18 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

able, and the richest and most artistic embroid- 
eries are all to be found in most tempting forms 
in Kyoto. Then the old curiosity shops, with 
the discarded treasures of the old nobility and of 
dismantled temples, arouse a bargaining enthu- 
siasm that becomes almost a mania. Temples, 
palaces, galleries, all are forgotten in the pleas- 
urable excitement of shopping in Kyoto. It is 
pardonable, too, because no one can put so much 
thought, and feeling, and beauty in tea-cups, 
vases, screens, and a thousand other small things, 
as the Japanese. 

But there are higher pleasures in Japan than 
the fascinating one of shopping. Japan, itself, 
is a pleasure to behold. It is a great landscape 
park. It is a magnificent study in green. It 
is everywhere a great, beautiful picture, with a 
foreground of rich green, terraced rice-fields, 
with here and there groves of the gracefully- 
waving, tall, slender, green bamboo, and with a 
background of the darker, giant cryptomeria, or 
of mountain sides of a heavier verdure, broken 
and given tone and efifect by bright lacquered 
temples and stately pagodas, set in, or inlaid, as 
it were, amid the foliage of the mountains. 
In every direction there is a vista of beauty. 

The Japanese, themselves, are pleasure lovers, 
and in addition to enjoying their landscape views, 
flower holidays, and tea-houses, are fond of 
wrestling matches and the theater. Wrestling 



JAPAN— DREAMLAND 19 

matches in Japan take the place of prize fights 
in America. Exhibitions are given in tents in 
the parks of different cities, and the matches are 
largely attended. The wrestlers, instead of being 
small like other Japanese, are big, fleshy fellows, 
often being over six feet tall, and weighing from 
two hundred to three hundred pounds. Certain 
families are known as hereditary wrestlers, as the 
members, for many generations, have followed 
the same calling. In the ring the wrestlers are 
naked, except that they wear a brightly em- 
broidered apron. Jiujutsu is a more scientific 
method of wrestling, and is not used by the 
heavy wrestlers. 

Like the Chinese, the Japanese are especially 
fond of the theater. The theaters represent old 
Japan. There are many in the different cities, 
and are usually crowded. The largest is the 
Kabukiza in Tokio. It is a large, three-story 
frame building in the center of the city, and will 
seat about three thousand people. Performances 
begin at five in the afternoon, and last until 
about eleven, with an opportunity to get refresh- 
ments between acts. 

When I visited the theater the first time there 
was a howling mob around the gates trying to 
get in, and a howling mob of ushers inside call- 
ing out how many could enter. Soon an usher 
spied that I was a foreigner, and had a space 
opened to admit me. In the wide vestibule there 



20 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

were three great piles of Japanese wooden sandals 
and Japanese paper umbrellas. Everybody had 
to remove his shoes and check them. While I 
hesitated about taking off my shoes and tossing 
them upon a pile, for fear that they might be 
carried off as souvenirs, the usher hurried 
away and found a pair of large white sacks, 
which he brought back and tied over my shoes. 
Feeling somewhat like a kitten with its feet tied 
up in paper slippers, I was conducted to a box. 
The same accommodating usher soon brought 
me a chair, and with two foreign ladies who 
entered later, we were the only ones in the great 
crowded theater not sitting on the floor. In a 
short time the usher reappeared to collect the 
money for the seat. There is no admission 
charge at the entrance, but the fee is collected 
by the usher after a person is comfortably seated. 
For my box seat the price was only seventy-five 
cents. 

The theater has a main floor and two balconies, 
the boxes being on either side of the lower bal- 
conies. The main floor is divided into square 
stalls that seat from four to six people, divided 
by partitions about a foot high. The theater 
was crowded with a responsive, motley crowd of 
men, women, and children, all in native costume. 

The stage is quite broad and deep. It revolves 
on a pivot, so that the stage setting between 
scenes is quickly changed by revolving the stage. 



JAPAN— DREAMLAND 21 

The stage setting was elaborate and realistic. 
From the rear of the theater to the stage extends 
a platform about six feet wide, along which the 
principal actors make their entrances and exits. 
As they walk along this platform their step is 
stiff and stilted, with many stops, to represent 
that they are coming from a long distance. Much 
of the acting was stiff and the speech was 
affected, but a few of the actors were very natural 
and? effective. There are no actresses upon the 
Japanese stage, but men take women's parts. 
It is rather amusing at times to hear a deep 
masculine voice coming from a feminine costume. 
There is a tendency toward the extremely 
realistic in the stage setting and stage tricks. 
In a heavy tragedy there was much wailing and 
cutting off of heads. As a murderer brought 
down his sword upon his enemy's neck, the 
victim, as he fell towards the floor, quickly threw 
his robe over his head, and from beneath it rolled 
out an artificial head with a gory neck and long 
locks. While the murderer was swinging this 
head by the hair, in the air, making an eloquent 
speech, two stage assistants with a little screen 
stepped before the murdered man ; the dead man 
got up quickly and all three sidled out. The 
audience was supposed not to notice this, or 
even to observe on the stage the little assistants 
dressed in black, with black masques, which they 
pull down over their faces when they look toward 



22 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

the audience, who are constantly running about 
the stage during the performance adjusting a 
costume, arranging a piece of scenery, or helping 
off a dead man. These little black-robed assis- 
tants seem to foreigners like little brownies, and 
soon stand out as the most prominent personages 
upon the stage. 

To a foreigner at the theater the chorus and 
orchestra are always distracting features. The 
orchestra of two or three pieces and a small 
chorus occupy a little latticed balcony about half 
way back on the stage to one side. At the most 
interesting moment they always break out with 
their Oriental music or screeches and wails. 

As the theater represents old Japan, so the law 
courts represent new Japan. Japan adopted 
largely the French judicial system, and foreign 
customs are found in the courts. In Tokio the 
court-house is a new large three-story brick 
structure, so built, it is thought, that it can re- 
sist the frequent earthquakes. As I walked 
down the corridors I noticed little braziers beside 
many office doors with boiling kettles, so that 
the officials could have their tea at a moment's 
notice. The Japanese are constant tea drinkers, 
and boiling tea-kettles are found in shops, trains, 
and in many other unexpected places. 

The court-room was fair sized and arranged 
after the foreign style. On the bench sat five 
judges, at their side the prosecuting attorney, 



JAPAN— DREAMLAND 23 

before them sat the testifying witness, while the 
prisoner stood in a box-like stand. At tables, on 
the other side of the room, sat the prisoner's 
attorneys. Chairs in foreign style were provided 
for lawyers and spectators. The judges and 
lawyers wore European clothes, and over them 
long, black gowns. The collar of the gown of 
the prosecuting attorney was deeply embroidered 
in red, and those of the judges in white. 
They all wore very artistic caps. Judges and 
lawyers were all under forty, representing mod- 
ern Japan throughout. 

The trial was conducted with great decorum. 
There was no jury. The judges seemed to be 
supplied with a full, written statement of the 
case, and the presiding judge examined all the 
witnesses, the lawyers asking no questions di- 
rectly themselves, but now and then they had 
a judge ask some question for them. At the 
conclusion of the examination the lawyers deliv- 
ered their arguments. As a lawyer, I was im- 
pressed with the dignity and business-like direct- 
ness of the whole proceeding, but at the same 
time, through an attorney's inability to cross- 
examine witnesses, it struck me that it might be 
easy to perpetrate a wrong. 

Old Japan, though, constantly breaks through 
the cover of new Japan. The witnesses seem- 
ingly take no oath, but bow over a table before 
the court. One witness was so impressed with 



24 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

the dignity of the court that he attempted to 
make a low Japanese bow tlhat would touch the 
floor. Midway he struck the table with his head 
with a loud thump that could be heard through- 
out the room. He quickly came up, rubbing his 
head, to the suppressed amusement of the court 
and spectators. Then, the prisoner reminds one 
of old Japan, as he is conducted into the room. 
His head is covered with a bell-shaped basket, 
which rests upon his shoulders, preventing his 
face from being seen, and himself from seeing, 
while his hands are tied ; and he is led with a rope 
by a little policeman, who proceeds him by about 
three feet. Inside the court room the basket 
and ropes are removed. So, everywhere, under 
the foreign veneer, can be found old Oriental 
Japan. 



CHAPTER IL 

RELIGIOUS JAPAN. 

WHILE the theaters represent old Japan, the 
law courts new Japan, the temples seem to 
betoken a passing Japan. They seem to be the 
worshiping places of dead or dying religions. 
For centuries Shintoism and Buddhism have 
been the national religions of Japan. The dis- 
tinctions between them it is difficult for a traveler 
to discern, for the people seem to mix and mingle 
the two religions. For instance, a member of the 
Japanese Imperial Parliament, who was an editor, 
and who was returning from a trip around the 
world, stated, in answer to my question in regard 
to the Japanese religions, that many Japanese, 
like himself, were ordinarily Shintoists, but in 
case of a death in their family they would send 
for Buddhist priests; yet, on the whole, they 
put little stress upon religion, but more upon 
morality. 

About the temples of the two religions, though, 
there are some distinctive features. Before every 
Japanese temple there is a torii or gateway of 
the gods, which consists of two upright posts 
about fifteen feet high, and about the same dis- 
tance apart, connected at the top by two cross- 



26 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

bars. A curved upper bar represents a Bud- 
dhist temple, and a straight bar a Shinto temple. 
The center of the altar of a Buddhist temple, 
too, is a large image of Buddha, while the center 
of a Shinto altar is a round mirror, or looking- 
glass, in which the soul of the worshiper is 
supposed to be reflected. The Shinto temples 
and the robes of the priests seem plainer than 
those of the Buddhists. 

The temples of both religions, however, are 
of wood, one-story high, and of the same general 
ramshackle style. They have little architectural 
pretension, and to a sightseer soon become very 
monotonous. 

They have, though, some peculiar features. 
Before most of them is a large collection-box 
about the size of an old-fashioned wooden water- 
ing-trough, with iron bars across the top, into 
which the worshiper tosses some coin before he 
loudly claps his hands two or three times, or 
pulls a bell rope to ring a bell to attract the 
attention of the god to whom he is to pray. 
Before many temples, too, are wooden racks on 
which are suspended countless little boards, bear- 
ing the names of the contributors to the temple. 

Outside and inside of the temples are found 
all sorts, kinds, and sizes of images or idols. 
Some temples have few idols, others many. One 
of the most famous is the temple in Kyoto of the 
33,333 images. It is a large barn-like structure 



RELIGIOUS JAPAN 27 

several centuries old, and almost a block long, 
with the whole center occupied by long tiers of 
images of the Goddess Kwannon, or Goddess of 
Mercy, a thousand in number; each goddess 
gilded, five feet high, and bearing two spears, 
and decorated with the images of enough smaller 
goddesses to make up the number 33,333. These 
gilded goddesses stand like a regiment of 
Amazons. 

Some temples have one great idol, called the 
Daibutsu, or Great Buddha. These are fre- 
quently from forty to sixty feet in height, the 
largest being in the temple at Nara, while the 
most impressive stands in the open air, the temple 
having been long since destroyed, at Kamakura, 
and is visited by most travelers to Japan. 

Some temples, too, have idols that are sup- 
posed to have miraculous healing powers. At 
Kyoto is a temple with an image of a bull in the 
yard, which will heal a person of the headache 
if he will rub his head against the bull's head, or 
will heal any other part of a person's body by 
rubbing it against the similar part of the bull's 
body. It is Japanese faith-cure carried to an 
extreme. 

What these idols really signify to a mystic 
Oriental, it is hard for a more matter-of-fact 
Occidental to grasp. It certainly seems incon- 
gruous, though, to find a progressive, educated, 
enlightened Japanese on his knees before one of 



28 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

these homely (although not hideous like the 
Chinese) images, the face and head of which are 
often stuccoed with paper-wads or spit-balls with 
which other worshipers in some form of devo- 
tion have pelted it ; or to see one of these modern 
Japanese hanging up a little paper prayer near to 
one of these idols. There must be a symbolism 
not suspected by the Occidental. 

As the old churches and cathedrals of Europe 
have their art treasures, so many of these ancient 
temples are rich with collections of old Japanese 
prints, pictures, and embroideries. The carv- 
ings on many of the temples, too, are quite 
elaborate and remarkable. Animals of all kinds 
are frequently carved on the sides of the temples. 
One of the best known is that of the three mon- 
keys at Nikko on the side of the stable in which 
is kept the sacred pony used in some of the 
religious processions. One of the monkeys has 
his paws over his ears, another over his eyes, 
and another over his mouth, signifying close your 
eyes, mouth, and ears in the presence of evil. 
These monkeys bear the attractive names of 
Iwazaru, Kikazaru, and Mizaru. Old costumes 
and ancient customs are often exhibited at the 
temples. In one of the temples at Nara an 
ancient religious dance is given, for a small fee, 
by some half dozen girls, wearing beautifully 
embroidered kimonos or robes. Their faces are 
elaborately painted and enameled, and their 



RELIGIOUS JAPAN 29 

hair decorated with pins and flowers. Several 
priests, with different instruments, furnish the 
music for the dance, which is slow, and made up 
largely of bows and fan movements. It is rather 
pretty, but not stimulating. 

There are several religious headquarters in 
Japan famous for their beauty, as well as for their 
group of temples. The early priests of Japan 
displayed the same aesthetic taste in selecting 
these places as did the mediaeval monks in locat- 
ing their monasteries and abbeys, which every 
traveler remarks as he visits their ruins. Nikko 
Nara, and Miyajama, at which places are located 
celebrated temples, are remarkable for their 
beauty. 

Nikko is up in the mountains about a hundred 
miles above Tokio. The railway journey is a 
pleasant one through rich, terraced rice-fields, 
until the mountains are reached. The railroad 
skirts or crosses now and then the old imperial 
road, which, in the time before railroads, was 
traversed by the emperors and courts in their 
pilgrimages to Nikko. The road is paved with 
small stone blocks, and is lined with giant crypto- 
meria, the great evergreen tree of Japan. Al- 
though now somewhat out of repair, yet this 
hundred-mile avenue with its tall over-arching 
trees is one of the most beautiful roads of the 
world. 

At Nikko are a large number of famous temples 
interesting to the student. Nikko, itself, with its 



30 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

great trees, its cascades, its quiet, shady paths, 
its foliage-covered mountains, its red-laquered 
bridge, crossed only by royalty, its ancient tem- 
ples with their animal carvings, its venerable 
mausolea of old shoguns, combines so effectively 
the beauties of art and nature that it well justi- 
fies the enthusiasm of the Japanese in forbidding 
to any one the use of the word "magnificent" until 
he has seen Nikko. Nikko is one of the world's 
wonders. Narra, the old religious capital of 
Japan, with its great temple park that rivals the 
best in old England, filled with tame deer that 
crowd about you to eat from your hand, has a 
quieter beauty that appeals to the traveler more 
than its ancient temples and graceful pagodas. 

Miyajama, celebrated for its temples, too, is 
counted by the Japanese as one of the three great 
sights of Japan. It is a small, mountainous, 
forest-covered island in the famed Inland Sea, 
about four hundred and fifty miles west of Tokio. 
It is a sacred island, and no one is permitted to 
be born or to die upon the island, just as the old 
Greeks on their sacred island of Delos on which 
Apollo was born, forbade any mortal to be born 
or to die. The temple at Miyajama, which often 
appears in Japanese art, is located at the mouth 
of a ravine, close by the sea, so that at high tide 
it seems as if it were afloat. 

Sacred things are often put to common-place, 
mundane uses. Just as the traveler sees in Flor- 



RELIGIOUS JAPAN 31 

ence, Ghiberti's bronze doors, which Michel- 
angelo called the "Gates of Heaven," used as a 
resting and nesting place by birds ; so Miyajama's 
torii, or gateway of the gods, which are portrayed 
so frequently in Japanese art, and which stand 
out before the temple in the sea, are used as a 
convenient diving-place by the natives. This 
descent in use marks somewhat the decline in 
religious feeling. 

The principal impression made upon a traveler 
by these old temples is that they are the wor- 
shiping places of dead and dying religions. 
The temples are dilapidated and deserted. The 
priests are ragged and without influence. The 
worshipers are few and poor. Their contribu- 
tions are paltry. Everything bespeaks death and 
decay. 

It is not death without a struggle. Now and 
then there is a revival, and a new temple is built. 
For instance, in 1895, at a cost of over half a 
million dollars, to replace a temple destroyed by 
fire, the Higashi Hongwanji was built in Kyoto 
by a national, popular subscription. Further, to 
show the world that their religion is not dead, 
the Buddhists of Japan contributed locks of hair 
with which twenty-nine large ropes of human 
hair were made, with which were lifted into place 
the great columns that support the roof of this 
magnificent temple. These ropes are still kept 
for exhibition. While this new temple, about 



32 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

two hundred feet square, and over a hundred feet 
high, is one of the most imposing and beautiful 
in Japan, yet it represents but a sporadic revival. 
Buddhism and Shintoism in Japan are passing 
religions, and are practically dead. Like the old 
Greek religions, they w^ill leave as their heritage 
to Japan picturesque ruined temples, and a 
wealth of mythology, which for centuries to come 
Mr. Hearn and others will interpret in their 
"Invisible Japans." These old, passing religions, 
with their idols and mysteries and legends, help 
to make Japan that strange dreamland. 

Japan is a religious anomaly among the nations 
of the earth. It is the only one of the great 
civilized, progressive countries that is heathen. 
Will Japan become a Christian country? Will 
the missionaries convert the Japanese? The first 
impression of the traveler is that the missionaries 
in Japan have accomplished little, but when he 
remembers how short have been their labors, for 
I met the first Episcopal missionary to Japan, 
and he was not an exceedingly old man ; how few 
comparatively are their numbers, and how limited 
their resources, he finally marvels at the achieve- 
ments of this handful of devoted men and women 
of various countries and denominations repre- 
senting the cause of the Christian church. 

Chapels, churches, schools, publishing houses, 
and Y. M. C. A.'s are flourishing and increasing 
in size, numbers, and influence. In Tokio the 



RELIGIOUS JAPAN 33 

Y. M. C. A. Building is a large structure, located 
a short distance off of the Ginza, the Broadway 
of the capital. It is in the center of the student 
quarter,, and Tokio is said to be the largest 
student city in the world, having over fifty thou- 
sand students in its higher schools. This insti- 
tution is well patronized by the Japanese. 

Upon the Ginza the Methodists own a valuable 
piece of property, and have upon it a large print- 
ing and publishing house. Upon part of this 
lot the Methodists expect to build an institutional 
church. 

Mr. James Cowen, formerly of Cincinnati, is 
at the head of the publishing establishment. One 
Sunday I took tiffin, or the noon meal, at Mr. 
Cowen's home in the Methodist Compound. I 
w^as glad of the opportunity to see the homes of 
missionaries. The Methodist Compound at Tokio 
is said to be the finest missionary compound 
in the world. It is located in the best residence 
|x>rtion of Tokio. It covers twenty-five acres, 
and seems like a small park with its beautiful 
trees and plants. It was sold many years ago by 
the Japanese government to the Methodists for 
twenty-five hundred dollars, and on account of 
the growth of Tokio has become very valuable. 
It had been a government agricultural farm. 
Within the grounds are six large, airy, eight- 
room, two-story frame houses, built upon the 
foreign plan. The houses would rent for thirty 



34 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

dollars a month in any American city suburb, and 
bring that rent in Tokio in the absence of a mis- 
sionary family. The missionaries live here com- 
fortably, and on account of the customs of the 
land, are compelled to employ a number of serv- 
ants. Servants' wages are cheap, but aside from 
that, living expenses for foreigners are higher in 
Japan than at home. 

The salaries of the missionaries are graduated 
according to years of service and the size of their 
family. The minimum Methodist salary is $550, 
and the maximum $1,400, v^hich is received by 
only a few of the oldest missionaries. When the 
cost of their living, and the fact that the children 
of the missionaries must be sent to America to 
be educated are considered, the salaries are quite 
small. That the ambassadors of a great church 
to a foreign people should live comfortabl}^ is 
only proper. 

Within this compound is a Methodist college 
and theological school and a girls' school. There 
are about two hundred students in each of these, 
the number being restricted by the capacity of 
the buildings. The large three-story main build- 
ing was wrecked by an earthquake a few years 
ago, and is now braced with heavy timbers until 
it can be torn down. 

The printing-house is located here. Books in 
many languages are printed. English books are 
printed by typesetters that do not know a word 



RELIGIOUS JAPAN 35 

of English ; among the publications being an in- 
terdenominational missionary paper. I saw the 
plates of a Spanish Bible being printed by the 
Bible Society for the Philippines. Tagalog books 
are also printed here. I was interested in the 
types for Japanese and Chinese books. Those 
languages have no alphabet, and every word has 
a separate character. One case contained two 
thousand different type of the common char- 
acters, and another over eight thousand different 
characters. The type is made in the establish- 
ment. A few years before Mr. Co wen took 
charge the presses were worked by fourteen 
coolies, but they are now run by a gasoline en- 
gine. One of the presses is a large modern 
American press, and another is a Japanese copy, 
made by Japanese imitators at one-half the cost. 
Its work is not quite so satisfactory. 

The greatest and most successful missionary in 
Japan is a Russian Greek Catholic Bishop. His 
labors here cover over forty years, the fruit of 
his labors are twenty thousand converts, and the 
material monument is a magnificent Greek Cath- 
olic Cathedral, the most imposing building in 
Japan's capital, to which every passing jinrikisha 
man points with pride. The elaborate and beau- 
tiful ceremonies of the Greek Church appeal to 
the Japanese masses. 

The Roman Catholics with their missions, that 
have come down from the days of St. Xavier, 



36 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

have done good work, and they have several 
churches and a large number of adherents in 
Tokio. Other Protestant churches have success- 
ful missions, and I even met a Mormon mission- 
ary from Utah. 

Some instances of Christian influence in Japan 
are seen by the adoption of the Christian calen- 
dar, the observance by many banks and govern- 
ment offices of Sunday, and the general respect 
shown the Christian institutions. Many of the 
brightest Japanese boys and girls have attended 
missionary schools to learn the English language, 
and have become permeated with Christian ideas, 
even if they have not accepted the Christian faith. 
Among Japanese moralists there is a recognition 
of the necessity of a living religion for the nation, 
that for philosophic reasons make them favorably 
inclined to Christianity. That the people will 
become Christian in the immediate future, how- 
ever, must not be expected. 



CHAPTER III. 

CHINA'S CAPITAL. 

PEKING is an out-of-the-way capital. It is 
about nine hundred miles north of Shanghai, 
and it takes from four to five days on a coasting 
steamer to reach it. We arrived at the mouth 
of the Peiho River about eight o'clock on the 
morning of the coronation of King Edward, but 
as the English quarantine officer had gone up the 
river to celebrate the day, our ship had to lay at 
anchor until his return about six in the afternoon. 
There is a bad bar at the mouth of the river, 
but we managed to get over it, and we sailed 
up the river past old, dismantled forts and villages 
of mud houses to Tongku. As there is no hotel 
here I remained on board the ship all night, and 
took the train next morning at seven for Peking. 
It is a ride of only ninety miles, but it took the 
train from seven in the morning until four in 
the afternoon to traverse the distance. The 
train was fairly comfortable, but it had no dining- 
car on board, and I became quite hungry. As 
cholera was raging in China, I was told not to 
eat anything that was not hot, or drink anything 
that had not been boiled for fear of the cholera 
germs. I disregarded the rule, and bought at 



38 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

one of the stations a sweet cake, but, as soon as 
I bit a piece off, it had such a disagreeable taste 
that I threw it away and went hungry to Peking. 

Peking is one of the unique cities of the world. 
Its outer walls enclose twenty-five square miles 
and a million people. Within Peking are four 
walled cities, one within the other. At the 
center is the Forbidden City, containing the 
Emperor's palaces ; around that is the Imperial 
City, with its red walls, which foreigners cannot 
enter ; outside of that is the Tartar City in which 
are located the foreign legations, and around that 
the Chinese City. 

The wall of the Tartar City is immense. It is 
forty feet high, fifty feet wide at the base, and 
thirty feet at the top. It is sixteen miles around. 
Its sides are of stone, its top is paved with stone, 
and at either side are stone parapets. Around 
the outside is a wide, deep moat. At short inter- 
vals are bastions, and over the nine gates are 
great towers of brick and timber ninety-nine 
feet high. They are not permitted to be higher, 
as the Chinaman believes that they would ob- 
struct the free passage through the air of the 
spirits. The port-holes for cannon in the tower 
contain painted boards to look like cannon 
instead of the actual guns. The Chinese thought 
that the sight of these painted cannon would ter- 
rify the enemy so that they would depart without 
their having to use any cannon, just as they be- 



CHINA'S CAPITAL 39 

lieved that the millions of fire-crackers that they 
shot off during the Boxer siege would drive away 
the foreigners. 

A ride around the Tartar City on the top of 
the wall is interesting. The strongest impres- 
sion as I looked down upon Peking was that it 
is a city of trees. The houses and palaces of 
Peking are one story high, as the Chinese women 
with their bound feet cannot climb staircases. 
About the houses in the compounds are numer- 
ous trees. The result is that the houses are 
hidden largely by trees, and Peking therefore 
appears like a forest city. 

The mile or more of the wall near the legation 
quarter abounds with memories of its able de- 
fense by the foreign troops during the Boxer 
siege. The great Catholic Cathedral and orphan- 
age also abound with memories of this awful 
siege. 

From the wall, among the interesting sights, I 
looked down on the great civil-service examina- 
tion hall and cells, now closed by treaty for five 
years as part of China's punishment for the Boxer 
rebellion. The whole place is grown up now 
with rank weeds. Here are the buildings for the 
examiners, and fifteen thousand cells for the ones 
wishing to take the examination. The cells are 
separate stone buildings about seven feet high, 
three feet wide, and three feet deep. The exam- 
ination lasted three days, and the applicants were 



40 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

bricked in for that period, and their bread and 
food handed in to them. 

Official advancement in China is the result 
of competitive literary examinations in the Chi- 
nese classics. In the capitols of the provinces 
examinations are first held, and the successful 
ones come to Peking for the last examination, 
v^hich is held only once in three years. If suc- 
cessful here, the highest honors are bestowed. 
China's poorest coolie's son, through study and 
the passing of examinations may become a man- 
darin, and one of the highest officials. Through 
these examinations Li Hung Chang, w^ho stood 
first among his competitors, received his ad- 
vancements. 

Near by is the Confucian Temple, and here I 
saw the rows of stone tablets bearing the names 
of all the successful contestants at these exam- 
inations for over five hundred years. The suc- 
cessful ones are given the title of Doctor of Liter- 
ature, and this is China's roll of honor, instead of 
a hall of fame. 

Not far away is the Hall of Classics, and 
here inscribed on marble slabs are the Chinese 
classics. They are engraved to prevent their 
destruction by fire. It may be a wise precaution. 
The Boxers in trying to set fire to the British 
legation burned their Hanlon college and library, 
the greatest library that has been destroyed since 
the Alexandrian library. 



CHINA'S CAPITAL 41 

In the same neighborhood is the great Llama 
Temple with its large grounds and many temple 
buildings enclosed within great walls. Until 
after the relief of Peking a foreigner entered at 
the risk of his life, and now they are not wel- 
comed. Until recently there were more than 
fifteen hundred Thibetan and Mongolian monks 
here, but at present their number is considerably 
reduced. They are a dirty, unattractive, even 
villainous-looking set of fellows. The Chinese 
are clean and prepossessing in comparison. 

At five-thirty the temple gong rang for serv- 
ices. We were standing then in the open square 
in front of the big temple, and around us were a 
good many monks. As soon as the bell sounded 
they all ran out of the square leaving us alone. 
Soon across the square marched the High Llama 
by himself. He scowled at us as he passed. At 
the entrance of the temple he stopped, said his 
prayers, kissed the door frame, and entered. 
Then quickly came from all sides the monks. 
Each wore a red robe, in Greek toga style, with 
the left arm bare. To services they also wore 
a very heavy woolen headgear that projects a 
foot above the forehead and slopes back to 
the neck. The services consisted of a chant 
from big music-books by the monks, who sat on 
low benches, and of some bowing by the great 
Llama before the high altar. He was a danger- 
ous, wicked-looking fellow. Some monks whis- 



42 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

pered, and he left his throne, came down to the 
offending monks, and with a long rattan thrashed 
two of the monks over their bare arms and 
shoulders. They never uttered a word, and the 
chanting went on with greater vigor. 

In this temple there was a curious large 
prayer-wheel, in which there is a large wheel 
turned by a crank, with which the monks can 
grind out prayers. 

The street scenes of Peking are extremely inter- 
esting. The main streets are about one hundred 
feet wide, and are lined on either side with one- 
stoiry shops. The shops are mostly open to the 
street so that their contents are on exhibition. 
On the wide thoroughfares, between what might 
be called the drive and the side-walks, are lines 
of booths in wihich are sold many articles. In 
many half-open booths are gathered a crowd of 
interested natives listening to an Oriental story- 
teller, while in others crowds are watching jug- 
glers. In many booths, and oftentimes in the 
open street, barbers are shaving the faces and 
half of the head. Shaving is an important 
occupation in China. 

The driveways and principal gates are crowded 
with a struggling mass of vehicles, animals, and 
humanity. There are long trains of pack-don- 
keys, shorter ones of camels, braying mules, 
heavy carts, dashing jinrikishas, immense wheel- 
barrows drawn by horses and balanced by men, 



CHINA'S CAPITAL 43 

and many other strange vehicles that I have 
never seen at home or elsewhere. Among these 
are crowded perspiring men, with waists bare, 
and mud-colored playing children as naked as 
when they were born. Here follow your cart 
half-dressed beggar women, carrying naked 
babies scabby with skin diseases. 

Next comes a man with a live bird fastened to 
the end of a short stick. He is one of the 
Emperor's poorly-paid and poorly-dressed re- 
tainers, and he carries the bird to show that he 
is not compelled to work. Then of a higher 
class are countless thousands in blue cotton 
gowns, and of a still higher class a small number 
in long silken robes. Among them now and 
then walkes a Manchu woman, taller than the 
Chinese with her gaudy head-dress, and here and 
there hobbles a bound-foot Chinese woman. 
Peeping into a passing cart you see the highly 
whitened, brightly painted face of a woman of 
high rank that resembles some brilliant flower. 
While you are trying to grasp all these sights you 
are holding your breath and your nose, for the 
air is heavy with more stenches than I dare 
describe. 

While there is here everything to see and 
everything to smell, there are now and then some 
strange things to hear. In one of these crowded 
streets my attention was aroused by the clangor 
caused by the beating on some musical instru- 



44 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

ments, and then I saw a funeral procession with 
the band at its head. In the procession followed 
men carrying barrel-shaped banners, and after 
them a long procession of men bearing all sorts 
of life-size paper imitations of things that the 
dead prince, for so he happened to be, used in 
life. There were paper deer, paper dogs, paper 
servants, carried over the shoulders at the end of 
long poles, and then paper horses on rollers, 
and a paper house, and then trays of paper 
money, and paper eatables. All these paper 
articles are taken to the cemetery and burned so 
that the spirit of the articles one uses in life may 
go with the spirit of the dead man to the spirit 
world. Finally came the great pyramidal bier 
of timbers, on top of which rested the heavy coffin 
containing the remains of the prince. This bier 
was carried by sixty-four struggling, perspiring 
men. The whole funeral procession was mixed 
and mingled with the street crowd so that some- 
times it would be lost and then reappear. 
Frequently when the coffin is taken to the ceme- 
tery it is not buried, but simply placed upon the 
ground, or in a field to wait the coming of the 
lucky day of the deceased. White is the mourn- 
ing color in Peking, and the men mourners who 
walk on foot are dressed in white, and the carts 
carrying the women have white covers, and the 
mules that draw them are white. 

One of the streets in Peking is very interesting 



CHINA'S CAPITAL 45 

because it is the literary and art center of North 
China. The street is about a mile long, ten feet 
wide, and lined with shabby one-story mud- 
plastered buildings. The street has no side- 
walks, is not paved, and is full of dust and filth 
with the usual odors. The stores that line it are 
filled with books, paintings, and curios — among 
the rarest and most valuable to be found for sale 
in China. For instance, after going into a small 
art shop and passing through a number of rooms, 
we came to a little back building about ten by 
twenty feet, of which the walls were lined with 
shelves and cases containing illustrated books 
and kakemonos or picture scrolls. Many of these 
were by the greatest Chinese painters, and some 
of them were a thousand years old. The books 
ranged in price from fifteen to one thousand 
dollars. I roughly estimated the value of the 
contents of this little rear room to be worth in 
the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars. 
I asked the proprietor if his stock had been dis- 
turbed by the foreign troops when they looted 
Peking. He smiled and said that the soldiers 
did not understand the value of his goods. 

In a near-by cloissonne shop we were shown 
two large cloissonne urns and a tea service made 
for the king of Korea, and valued at six thousand 
dollars. These two shops, out of the many that 
line the street, show the immense values hidden 
behind these uninviting exteriors. 

The Chinese bank has its peculiarities. It was 



46 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

the first bank that ever burdened me with money. 
On my way to a reception at the American 
embassy, I stopped at the Russo-Chinese bank 
to have a fifty-dollar American express cashed. 
When I saw the teller counting me out a hundred 
and fifteen silver Mexican dollars, I demurred 
and asked for gold or paper money, but the bank 
had nothing but silver. I had to call a jinrikisha 
to haul me and my money to the hotel, and I had 
difficulty in finding a place in my room in the 
Chinese hotel in which to hide it. It was the 
first time that I had ever been burdened with 
money. 

Just out of Peking is the Altar of Agriculture, 
where the emperor makes his annual sacrifices 
upon the altar, of animals, and the Temple of 
Heaven with its beautiful white marble steps 
and platform, and its blue porcelain roof. It is 
one of the impressive temples of the world. 

About ten miles from Peking is the Summer 
Palace, the favorite palace of the Dowager 
Empress. To visit it we went out in jinrikishas, 
having three coolies to each jinrikisha, one 
pulling and two pushing. They were strong, 
active fellows, and had the spirit of race horses. 
They dashed along over the roughly paved road 
at such speed that it was as exciting as riding 
on a railroad engine. My shoulder-blades were 
sore for a week from pounding against the back 
of the vehicle. 



CHINA'S CAPITAL 47 

The grounds of the Summer Palace cover about 
a thousand acres, and are surrounded by a high 
wall. The palace proper is made of a series of 
one-story stone buildings with yellow tiled roofs. 
They are quite handsomely and artistically built, 
but none are very large. Each building con- 
sists practically of three rooms, a central entrance 
room, and one room on either side. Such is the 
general arrangement of Chinese houses, they 
being but one room deep with a long frontage. 
The various buildings are connected by a beauti- 
fully-covered walk about half a mile long. The 
furniture in the room consisted of very heavy 
tables and chairs, the seats and backs of which 
were often inlaid with figured marble. Foreign 
influence was shown in the palace by very elegant 
and elaborate electric-light chandeliers. There 
is one magnificent chandelier representing a 
scorpion. 

The principal building in the grounds is a 
large Buddhist temple with a great tower of 
porcelain. The tiles covering the outside of the 
tower have in bas-relief images of Buddha, but 
most of the heads were wantonly knocked of? by 
the Italian soldiers that were quartered there. 
The Chinese consider foreigners as barbarians. 

Among the objects of beauty here is a large 
lake with numerous islands connected by orna- 
mental marble bridges. At one side of the lake 
is a large white m.arble steamboat, built to show 



48 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

the Empress Dowager what one looked like. She 
never was on a real one. On her marble ship 
we ate our lunch which we had brought with us. 
The Summer Palace and grounds, for artistic 
beauty, rival the country palaces of European 
monarchs. 

Admission to the Summer Palace can be ob- 
tained with great difficulty, and that only through 
the foreign ministers and foreign office. As we 
were about to leave the grounds, a young China- 
man came running up to us and told us that the 
Governor of the Palace had been notified by the 
foreign office of our presence, and that he wished 
to entertain us at tea. We were ushered into a 
small bronze building and awaited his coming. 
He soon appeared with a troop of retainers in 
uniform. He greeted us with a bow, shook his 
own hands in Chinese style, and then shook our 
hands. He then asked us to be seated, while his 
retainers stood, and tea was served. He was a 
very pleasant old gentleman, and told us that he 
was past seventy years old. He wore a pink 
button and a peacock feather in his hat, showing 
that he was a mandarin of the highest rank. 
After drinking the tea, he suggested that we 
take up a collection to present to his servants 
for their trouble in serving tea. We chipped in 
about five dollars for their trouble. Then, with 
his retinue of retainers, he escorted us to the 



CHINA'S CAPITAL 49 

palace gate, saw us into our jinrikishas, and very 
cordially and politely bade us farewell. 

Traveling in China is not easy. Dr. George 
Lowry, a medical missionary in Peking, and son 
of President Lowry of Peking University, and 
myself started on a hundred-and-fifty-mile horse- 
back ride across North China to visit the Ming 
Tombs and the Great Wall of China. 

For our expedition we sent ahead a mule cart 
drawn by two mules tandem to carry our cots, 
bedding, and food. With us we had to take a 
mafu, or hostler, on a mule to look after our 
horses and mules. The first day we rode forty- 
five miles through a country rich with waving 
grain. The principal grain is millet and kaolang, 
which looks like broom-corn. I saw a plow in 
use, pulled by three men, and guided by a fourth. 

We followed partly mule paths in short cuts, 
and partly the great Kalgan pass road to Mon- 
golia. This great road, by centuries of travel, 
has been worn down about ten feet below the 
adjoining farms. It is about a hundred feet 
wide, and up and down there is a constant pro- 
cession of pack-donkeys, carts, and camels, while 
great flocks of sheep were being driven to the 
Peking market. 

Towards evening we reached the Ming Tombs, 
where sleep the emperors of the Ming Dynasty 
which ruled China from 1368 to 1628, and which 
was overthrown by the present Manchu Dynasty. 



50 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

These tombs are located in a horseshoe-like 
valley about five miles long and three wide, sur- 
rounded by high mountains. There are twelve 
of these tombs, and they are placed in a large 
semi-circle around the edge of the valley. At 
the entrance to the valley stands a great pailow 
or triumphal gate, with five arches of carved 
white marble fifty feet high and ninety feet long. 
Passing through this grand portal the road con- 
tinues through various pailows, across great, half- 
destroyed marble bridges, and through the most 
wonderful avenue of statues in the world. This 
avenue of statues is composed in part of statues 
of twelve mandarins, each twelve feet high, and 
carved from a single block of white marble ; then 
statues of two pairs of elephants, two of camels, 
two of lions, two of unicorns, and two of horses, 
and so on ; one pair standing and one pair crouch- 
ing or reclining. So natural looking were some 
of them that my horse would pass them with 
great fear, and so ferocious looking that I would 
not have liked myself to come upon them in the 
dark. Next comes the great sacrificing hall over 
two hundred feet long and ninety feet wide, 
with a ceiling supported by teak wood pillars 
four feet thick and thirty feet long. Beyond, on 
the mountain side, is the great massive pile of 
masonry a hundred feet high, in the midst of 
which somewhere is buried Yong-lo, a Ming 
emperor. Insignificant in comparison are the 



CHINA'S CAPITAL 51 

tombs of Grant and Napoleon, and the mauso- 
leums of the Medicis, and of the Spanish mon- 
archs. 

We rode back about five miles to a small Chi- 
nese town where we met our cart and spent the 
nig-ht at a Chinese inn. The inn had a repelling 
front, and not a very attractive rear. It was 
made up of a series of one-story brick buildings 
constructed around a number of courts. For our 
quarters we had a building of three rooms. 
Across the side of our rooms was the brick stove 
bed, called the "kang." It is about two feet high 
and six feet wide. Fire is built within it, and the 
family sleep on top on mats and rugs. As these 
brick kangs become infested with vermin, we 
brought our cots and put them on top of the 
kang to sleep. 

In the court-yard in front of our building and 
in adjacent buildings were braying mules and 
talking muleteers, who together made night 
hideous. 

The next morning we had intended to go on to 
the Great Wall of China, but in the night I was 
taken sick with a high fever, so that by 
morning all my ambition to see the great wall 
was not sufficient to enable me to lift my head. 

The only thing left was to put me on the bed- 
ding in the bottom of the mule cart, and with the 
two mules tandem in this heavy springless vehicle 
haul me over an imaginary road of ruts and rocks 



52 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

under a blazing hot sun back to Peking. Here 
the doctor, instead of taking me back to the hotel, 
very kindly carried me to his father's home in 
the temporary Methodist compound. Both the 
new large Catholic and Methodist hospitals on 
Legation Street were in course of construction 
after the Boxer rebellion. At Doctor Lowry's 
I was placed in bed and told that probably I 
had typhoid fever, and must expect a long sick- 
ness. As Doctor Lowry and family were away, 
a Chinaman who could speak a little English was 
placed in charge of me, until the only American 
trained nurse in North China could be sent for. 
She was a hundred miles in the interior. The 
prospect was not very pleasing. A lady school 
friend of my sister's called and cheered me by 
telling me that Peking was a very inconvenient 
place in which either to marry or to die. I had 
seen a Chinese funeral and it did not appeal to 
me. The young lady had gone out to China to 
visit, had fallen in love and married a young 
American there, and in order to get married they 
had to bring the American consul up from Tien- 
tsin, sixty miles away, to perform the ceremony. 
I assured my friend that I had no desire either 
to marr}^ or to die in Peking. 

For a week I lay in bed looking out of the 
window much of the time at some crows that 
frequented an opposite wall and tree (never be- 
fore had crows seemed so large or black to me). 



CHINA'S CAPITAL 53 

wondering when my trained nurse would arrive. 
Word failed to reach her in the interior, and my 
sickness proved to be malarial fever; so in ten 
days I was on my feet again, thankful that I had 
escaped cholera and typhoid fever, Chinese riots, 
and superstition, and was ready to take ship 
home to America. 

Yet China is a great country, and John China- 
man is a great man. It is only after one has 
visited the Far East and has seen China and the 
Chinese at home that he realizes the reserve 
power and greatness of both. When China 
awakens the world will be astounded. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE NORWEGIAN FJORDS. 

THE trip to the top of the earth and back is 
full of varied and interesting experiences. 

With three Daytonians, Mrs. Ella O'Donoghue, 
Miss Julia Gunckel, and Miss Louise Bidleman, I 
sailed from Hamburg one August day for a cruise 
through the fjords of Norway, and on northward 
across the Arctic Ocean to the ice-pack that sur- 
rounds the North Pole. 

Our steamer was the small, but sturdy Nor- 
wegian yacht, the "Neptun," and our captain. 
Captain Hansom, was as brave and as capable a 
son of a viking as ever sailed the arctic seas. 

When we first saw the "Neptun," which was to 
be our sea home for a month, there was a half 
suppressed fear in all our hearts. She was no 
great Atlantic liner to which we had been accus- 
tomed, but only a little yacht twenty-eight feet 
wide, two hundred feet long, and of eight hun- 
dred tons burden. She sat low in the water, and 
as we looked doAvn upon her from the Hamburg 
dock she seemed like a toy for summer sails on 
southern seas. Experience soon showed that 
she could weather northern storms. With us 



THE NORV/EGIAN FJORDS 55 

were a hundred adventurous tourists from many 
lands, of which only seven came from America. 

As we steamed quietly down the Elbe toward 
the North Sea we all enjoyed our first Norwegian 
lunch on board, with its dozen different kinds of 
fish and cheese. It was the last meal that many 
enjoyed for several days. 

When we entered the North Sea we ran head 
on into a hurricane. Quick was the transforma- 
tion cm deck. The passengers suddenly looked 
over the rail and retired in humiliation. There 
was no pride left in any of them. One of the 
young ladies sought her cabin, and afterwards she 
said that she lay for two days with her shoes on 
and tam-o'-shanter tied about her head, wishing to 
be let alone, but hoping every minute that she 
might be able to get out on deck. The only 
cheering persons on board were the sturdy, 
bright-cheeked Norwegian maids, who were ever 
assisting the limp and miserable. 

For two days the "Neptun" breasted the storm 
and ploughed on towards Norway. There is an 
awful grandeur in a storm at sea. Here the 
wind shrieked and roared, the waves mounted 
high, and broke, and dashed, and pounded, while 
the "Neptun" leaped, and tossed, and rolled. 
Caught in the trough of the sea she would roll 
over on her side until the waves would sweep 
along her deck, and her floors would be at an 
angle of about forty-five degrees. She would 



56 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

keep rolling sidewise until there would come 
finally that moment of suspense when the ques- 
tion was, Could she get a grip on the sea and 
right herself, or would she, like many a good 
ship, turn turtle and go down to Davy Jones' 
locker? Low was her center of equilibrium 
though, and every time, after a frightful pause, 
she would come up safe and sound. 

After two days and nights of storm we sailed 
into the deep Hardanger Fjord, which was as 
quiet and placid as a millpond. We steamed up 
this narrow winding fjord for miles between 
steep mountains that rise up out of the sea. Near 
the water these mountains were green with 
luxuriant grass and trees, or bright with flowers 
and ripening cherries, while towards their sum- 
mits they were white with glaciers and great 
fields of ice and snow. We landed at the quiet 
little village of Odda, and drove some fifteen 
miles up the narrow valley to the spray-scattering 
waterfalls at Latefos, where the water leaps over 
a rock five hundred feet high. The water-power 
from these falls is now being harnessed to drive 
some great mills at Odda. The water-power 
of Norway promises to make it a manufacturing 
country. 

Tlie noticeable things on the drive were the 
men, women, and children all at work making 
hay in the little fields by hanging the long, wet 
grass on hay-fences to dry. A few peasants wore 




The Raftsund 



THE NORWEGIAN FJORDS 57 

their fast-disappearing, bright, provincial cos- 
tumes. From the tops of the mountains were 
pulley ropes to lower the firewood cut on the 
mountain tops to the valleys below. 

Towards evening we returned to our ship, and 
in the beautiful northern twilight, as we sailed 
down the fjord, we watched the reflections of the 
high mountains in the deep fjord. This pure 
northern air and clear light and the reflections 
in the deep fjords create much of the famed 
beauty of Norway. The trip from the Har- 
danger Fjord in the south of Norway to Hammer- 
fest in the north is through fjords and among 
islands so that the ship only for a few hours gets 
out into the stormy North Sea. 

After a night's ride from Odda we reached the 
old Hanseatic city of Bergen, the second city in 
size in Norway. It is a solidly-constructed, 
prosperous city, with fine churches and museums. 
It was the home city of both the Norwegian 
musicians, Ole Bull and Grieg. It is also a great 
fishing center, and to the tourists it is interesting 
for its fish-market, where live fish are kept in 
small tanks so that the marketers look into the 
tank and point out the fish which they want. It 
is then dipped up and killed with a stroke of a 
knife on the back of its neck. 

The flower and fruit market was equally inter- 
esting to me, for I was surprised at the beauty 
and variety of flowers, and the lusciousness and 



58 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

cheapness of strawberries and cherries in this 
far northern region. 

The Norwegians are such flower lovers, and 
the wild flowers in Norway in summer grow in 
such brightness and profusion that often I have 
thought that Norway ought to be called the 
flowery kingdom instead of Japan. Behind the 
double glass of the front windows in almost 
every Norwegian cottage and house can be seen 
a bank of geraniums and fuchias, which are house 
plants the year around. The wild flowers blos- 
som above the arctic circle. One day, out of a 
great bed of wild pansies I plucked a handful, and 
then climbed up a glacier to watch an avalanche 
of snow and ice coming down the opposite moun- 
tainside. The pansy bed was watered by the 
cold melting glacier, and they seemed to be con- 
genial neighbors. 

This Norwegian coast, some German writer 
says, is the product of a terrific conflict between 
heaven, sea, and earth. Wind, wave, and frost 
during centuries of carnival have carved the 
rocks to produce the present magnificent scenery. 
When one sees the deep, narrow channels that 
wind and wave have cut through the great solid 
rocks, creating the deep fjords, and sees also 
the rugged precipitous mountains that have been 
split and sundered by hoar frost and by ava- 
lanches of ice and snow, he feels that Norway was 
an appropriate home for the grim old Norse 



THE NORWEGIAN FJORDS 59 

mythology, and for the ponderous gods, Thor, 
Woden, and others whose names we have per- 
petuated in our days of the week. It seems a 
fitting dwelling-place for such gods, but hardly 
for man, yet the hardy Norwegian here on every 
scanty, slanting, fertile acre has cut a farm, and 
anchored a little log house. I suggested to a 
Norwegian farmer that he ought to see our broad 
American farms, which are horizontal and not 
vertical. Be it said of these Norwegian farmers, 
though, that they are as upright as their farms. 

One of the most magnificent of the fjords is 
the Troldfjord. The entrance from the Raftsund 
is through a deep channel so narrow between 
steep mountain sides that it seems almost impos- 
sible for the small yachts to enter. This fjord 
is surrounded with towering mountains, with 
tiheir gorges white with snow and ice. We 
landed near the head of this fjord and climbed 
up over a pathless mountain, amid mist and rain, 
through a rank, luxuriant vegetation of high ferns 
and bright wild flowers to the glacier lake, Trold- 
vand. In the lake were floating large cakes of 
ice, out upon which many of the party scrambled 
to have their pictures taken. It was a wild, 
picturesque place, with a mountain rising almost 
perpendicularly four thousand feet from the side 
of the lake, down which came a great glacier. 

To return we found that there was an easier 
way by crossing the glacier stream to avoid a 



60 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

precipice, and then by following the stream. 
This stream, though, was several feet deep, about 
thirty feet wide, and quite rocky and swift. As 
there was no bridge across it, three stalwart 
German lieutenants with high rubber boots 
offered to carry some of the party over. With 
a cane two made a chair for the ladies, who 
furnished an interesting picture with their feet 
sticking out straight to avoid the water while 
their skirts trailed through it. One big, stout 
lieutenant told me to get on his back and he 
would carry me over. When almost across he 
tripped on a rock and we both plunged headlong 
into the stream. I was already wet from the 
rain, but when I landed in that glacier stream it 
was a different degree of wetness. It felt very 
much as if I had fallen into the ice and salt water 
around an ice-cream freezer. None of us stood 
on any ceremony in speeding it back to the ship. 
When we got dry clothes no one was any the 
worse for the experience. 

As we were about to sail from this wild, 
uninhabited region, a man was seen rushing 
through the bushes down the mountain side, fran- 
tically waving his hands at us. We sent a boat 
and brought him on board, and found him to be a 
French botanist who was a passenger on our 
sister ship, the ''Kong Harold," which had sailed 
away several hours before us. He had wandered 
off from his party botanizing, and when he re- 



THE NORWEGIAN FJORDS 61 

turned and saw that his ship had gone, he was 
half wild with fright. He had no desire to play 
Robinson Crusoe so near the arctic regions. 
The only animal life that we saw in the neighbor- 
hood that might have been a companion for him, 
was when we were passing between the narrow 
cliffs. There high up on the side of the cliff, a 
mountain goat was carefully picking its way. 

Four or five hours later we saw the "Kong 
Harold" coming back, and as she neared us she 
signalled if we knew of her lost passenger. Amid 
applause from both ships we sent the Frenchman 
back in a small boat to the "Kong Harold." It 
was not until he failed to appear at dinner that 
the officers noticed his absence; when they did 
they at once turned to go back after him. They 
said that afterwards this French botanist never 
wandered far from the ship's party. 

Up near the arctic circle is Tronjdem, a city 
with about forty thousand inhabitants. It was 
the early capital of Norway, and it seems like a 
city of departed glory. Its wide streets are 
empty. In the old cathedral, though, the kings 
and queens of Norway are still crowned. It is 
becoming a great place for winter sports, and 
skeeing is very popular here. The most surpris- 
ing building here to me was the great, massive 
Masonic Temple. Its interior, with its wide 
marble staircase, and its great banqueting hall 
with lofty frescoed ceiling and huge chandeliers, 



62 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

has a very palatial appearance. I know of no 
Masonic Temple in Ohio that equals the one in 
this little Norwegian city up near the arctic 
circle. 

Crossing the arctic circle is attended with 
considerable ceremony. As we crossed it going 
up, four young ladies representing four different 
countries fired the four cannon on our ship. One 
of the Dayton young ladies represented America. 
On our return our chief mate, dressed in sea 
weed, took the part of Father Neptune, and was 
hoisted up over the ship's side onto the deck by 
his fantastically garbed attendants, and then cups 
were passed around out of which to drink to his 
health. At both times special dinners helped to 
commemorate the event. Well I remember the 
dinner northward bound on account of the great 
soup dishes of large, luscious strawberries, and 
the fresh, rich cream with which we were served. 
These almost arctic strawberries are about as 
large as peaches, and seem more delicious than 
any other strawberries I know. 

After crossing the arctic circle, and entering 
the region of the Midnight Sun, known as Nord- 
land, we made our first stop at the little town of 
Tromso, where we were greeted by the first 
Laplanders that we had seen. They had curious 
reindeer trinkets for sale. The special objects 
of interest to the tourists here are the fur stores, 
at which all kinds of arctic furs are for sale at 



THE NORWEGIAN FJORDS 63 

low prices. The size and number of polar bear 
skins here astonished me; they made me fear 
that all the Northern ice must be crowded with 
great white bears. The large white bear fur 
rugs cost only seventy-five dollars, while the 
market price for a big live polar bear is only one 
hundred and twenty-five dollars. 

A night's sail from Tromso brought us to 
Hammerfest, the most northern town in the 
world. It is a progressive little fishing village 
of two thousand inhabitants, and has its electric 
light and water-works. From the middle of 
May to the middle of July the sun never sets 
here, and from about the twentieth of November 
until the twentieth of January the sun never 
rises. During these dark winter months the 
electric light burns continuously in the streets. 

Two very suggestive sounds I heard in Ham- 
merfest. One was the Dayton, home-reminding 
click and ring of a National Cash Register, which 
had reached this most northern town of the 
world, and the other the angry growl of a large 
polar bear, which indicated that we were on the 
edge of the arctic world. Some sailors had 
caught the bear up at Spitzbergen, and had 
brought it down in a heavy, wooden box to ship 
it to Hagenbeck at Hamburg. There was a two- 
inch crack between the boards in the box, and as 
I peeped in the big bear jumped at me with an 
angry snarl. I jumped more than the bear. 



64 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

Some friend having a bag of gingersnaps, I put 
one up to the crack, and the bear licked it, and, 
finding it good, ate it, and we became friends. 
It was the wild bear's first taste of the sweets of 
civilization. I sometimes tell my children friends 
that just as they can catch a bird by putting salt 
on its tail, so tliey can tame a polar bear by giv- 
ing it a gingersnap. 

From Hammerfest to the North Cape is but a 
few hours' ride. It is a sail around the north- 
west corner of Europe, from the Atlantic into the 
Arctic Ocean. Soon after entering the Arctic 
Ocean we passed near Bird Rock, which is inhab- 
ited by hundreds of thousands of birds of every 
kind. Our steamer steered in close to the rock 
and fired its cannon, which caused a myriad of 
birds to fly up into the air. Above them all rose 
a great eagle, which soared high in the heavens 
and flew away. 

To every traveler there come moments of rap- 
turous surprise. One such to me was at the 
sight of the North Cape. There it stood pro- 
jecting out into the Arctic Ocean in all its big- 
ness and bluntness on a bright sunshiny after- 
noon. Neither it nor the day was disappointing. 
In its lonesomeness there was grandeur and 
majesty enough about it to make it worthy of 
being practically the most northern point of 
Europe, for a neighboring cape extends only a 
few yards farther north. Down at the south- 



N 1! 

.■i 



THE NORWEGIAN FJORDS 65 

eastern end of Europe is the rock of Gibraltar, 
always disappointing at first sight, but the North 
Cape is all that one fancies that it should be. 

As we arrived at North Cape about three in the 
afternoon, and were not anxious to climb it until 
evening, we anchored and indulged in cod-fishing 
over the ship's side. Lines with hooks and imi- 
tation minnows were dropped deep into the sea, 
and soon fish from eighteen inches to two feet 
long were being pulled up. It did not take long 
to fill a big tub with these fine cold-water fish, 
which we enjoyed for supper. The fish of these 
northern seas are delicious. 

After supper we were rowed ashore in small 
boats to climb North Cape, which is about a 
thousand feet high. It takes almost an hour to 
climb up a steep zig-zag path, protected by a rope 
railing, to the top. In the ravines along the side 
of the rock are snow and ice. The top is a broad 
level expanse covered with a course verdure. 
The only inhabitants were some mountain goats 
that played about the dizzy edges of the steep 
sides. One old fellow with long whiskers had 
grown tame from meeting tourists, and had be- 
come friendly, scampering around us to be 
rubbed and teased. He seemed to feel the lone- 
someness of this northern solitude. We walked 
across the top a mile or so to the point that looks 
out into the Arctic Ocean, and drawing our 
heavy wraps around us, for, though an August 



(^ OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

evening, the thermometer was near the freezing 
point, watched the setting sun. 

We were too late in the season to see the mid- 
night sun from the North Cape, although we 
were to view it a few nights later up in Spitz- 
bergen. Here the sun that evening did not set 
until about eleven, and it rose again about one. 
Twilight and dawn mingled their rays so that 
there was no darkness. The sun came down in 
a slanting course, and it took some time after it 
dipped into the Arctic Ocean before it disap- 
peared beneath the horizon. 

There is a weird impressiveness as one watches 
a sunset from the North Cape. There is, too, a 
somber brilliancy about the sunset, and a sug- 
gestiveness to an arctic voyager as he feels that 
he is standing on the edge of two worlds, that 
behind him are Europe and civilization and home, 
and that beyond him are the bleak, unexplored 
wastes of the Arctic Ocean. It is an unpleasant 
sensation. There was a feeling of relief and 
satisfaction, as if we were escaping from unknown 
immensity that midnight, when we had clamber- 
ed down from the great rock, and had climbed 
up into our snug little steamer sea home. For 
impressiveness and suggestiveness nothing sur- 
passes a midnight spent on North Cape. 



CHAPTER V. 

SPITZBERGEN AND THE ICE PACK. 

Beautiful was the night that we started from 
North Cape on our expedition to Spitzbergen and 
the ice-pack. The sea was calm and the air was 
clear. There was no darkness, and there would 
be none for ten days, or until we returned to 
Europe. I sat out on deck until about two in 
the morning watching North Cape and Europe 
fading away in the distance, and half wondering, 
as every arctic voyager does, if we would return 
in safety. My musings soon were interrupted 
by admiration for the splendor of the early sun- 
rise, as the sun gradually came up out of the 
Arctic Ocean, scattering its beams of beauty in 
every direction. When I finally went down to 
sleep, our ship, the "Neptun," with the old ice- 
pilot on board, was in the lead, and close in her 
wake was her sister ship, the "Kong Harold." 
On these northern cruises the Norwegian Steam- 
ship Company always sends two ships for safety 
purposes with instructions to keep close together. 
We were steering for the North Pole, and every- 
thing seemed propitious for a pleasant voyage. 

Weather conditions, however, rapidly change 
in the Arctic Ocean. The next day was raw, 



68 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

cold, and foggy, with an ugly sea running. The 
"Kong Harold" had lost us in the fog, and we 
were journeying alone. That night we expected 
to reach Bear Island, one of the great whaling 
stations in the Arctic Ocean, where the whalers 
had arranged that we should join them in a 
whaling chase, if the weather and a whale would 
permit. Instead, on account of the fog, we 
missed Bear Island entirely, and afterwards 
learned that, because of fogs, the island was 
visible in August for three days only. 

The following day was Sunday, and it contin- 
ued bleak and gloomy. The passengers were 
disgusted and disagreeable ; they became more 
so when they discovered from the ship's com- 
pass that we had changed our direction from 
north to due west. The officers explained that 
it was necessary, as the temperature of the water 
showed that there was an ice-floe north of us 
which we should have to sail around. Then the 
transforming power of music was exhibited. 
Some half a dozen German Catholic priests gath- 
ered outside the cabin door, and in strong, vigor- 
ous tones sang some old German hymns. People 
of all nationalities collected around them and 
joined in singing. Soon there was good cheer 
and strong courage in the hearts of all. 

Before long large chunks of ice were seen 
floating in the sea. These soon grew larger, and 
the interest became intense as we saw approach- 



SPITZENBERGEN AND THE ICE PACK 69 

ing us a majestic procession of stately icebergs 
washed by the waves into all sorts of fantastic 
shapes and forms. In and among these icebergs 
the ship worked her way for a long distance, 
until she came to a great solid ice-field miles in 
extent, so that she had to turn and go back, and 
steam again over towards Greenland to get 
around this ice that was coming down from the 
East coast of Spitzbergen. It seems that the 
polar current flows down the east coast of Spitz- 
bergen, and the Gulf Stream goes up the west 
coast, so that along the east coast the sea is 
usually frozen, while along the west coast the sea 
is open. The ice from the east coast strikes the 
Gulf Stream and is soon melted, but due to the 
unusual cold of the summer of 1907 it did not 
melt until it had drifted over near to Greenland. 
Finally, we sailed around the ice, and awoke 
one morning to find ourselves at anchor in a fog. 
Where w^ were no one knew, for the officers had 
not been able for two days to catch the sun to 
take observations, but the officers said that they 
could tell by the sound that the waves were 
dashing against rocks, and that we were some- 
where near the coast of Spitzbergen. For thirty- 
six hours we lay at anchor in the fog waiting for 
the sun. It grew very monotonous, and some 
one suggested a game of bridge whist. We 
accordingly brought a table out forward on deck, 
and the two young ladies from DaytOn, a German 



70 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

gentleman from Tokio, Japan, and myself, clad 
in our arctic clothes and furs, engaged in proba- 
bly the most northerly game of whist ever 
played on a steamer's deck. As the sun was 
now peeping out, the ship's photographer thought 
that a bridge game in the open air within six 
hundred miles of the North Pole was such a 
novelty that he took our picture. 

Before long the fog lifted, the sun shone clear, 
and over and almost above us seemed the great 
towering, glistening, ice-wrapped peaks of Spitz- 
bergen. 

We now were in the little-explored desolate 
far North, for although Spitzbergen had been dis- 
covered many years before by the Dutch, and by 
them well named Spitzbergen, on account of the 
many peaked mountains, yet it was first crossed 
in 1897 by Sir W. Martin Conway, and first 
circumnavigated only in 1898 by Professor 
Nathorst. 

Spitzbergen is located in the Arctic Ocean 
about six hundred miles north of Europe, and 
about half way between Europe and the North 
Pole. It is more than three hundred miles 
north of the most northern part of Alaska. It 
is a great, barren, mountainous, ice-covered 
island. It belongs to no country, for no govern- 
ment has cared to own it. It has no inhabitants 
except a few transient whalers who get ice bound 
there, and a few men who are trying to operate 



SPITZENBERGEN AND THE ICE PACK 71 

a coal mine in the southern part. This is owned 
by a gentleman in Boston. The coal is frozen 
down several hundred feet, and after that is 
mined out it is thought that the coal will be 
good. 

Spitzbergen is, however, the home of the seal, 
many of which we saw swimming in the sea and 
bays, of the w^hite reindeer, the arctic fox, the 
polar bear, and of the eider-down duck, the 
thickness of whose down surprised me. 

As soon as the ice pilot found his bearings 
after we reached Spitzbergen, we sailed for Ice 
Fjord and Bell Sound to deliver some mail to 
the whalers who were frozen in there, and to land 
some German officers who wished to hunt the 
big arctic game, but both bays were frozen up 
solidly so we could not enter. We then coasted 
northward, until in the extreme north we reached 
Virgo Bay, where Walter Wellman, the Ameri- 
can arctic explorer, had his air-ship camp. 

Here is a small bay, well land-locked, and pro- 
tected by high mountains. On the rocky shore, 
Mr. Wellman had established his camp, which 
consisted of four houses. It was a picturesque 
place. Only a hundred yards from his house 
was the everlasting ice, while back of him were 
steep barren mountains, and across the bay front- 
ing him were great glaciers, that presented per- 
pendicular ice fronts from two to three hundred 
feet high where they reached the sea. 



72 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

Mr. Wellman's house was a solid square struc- 
ture, with only one door, and no windows. It 
was built of heavy timbers, with double walls 
and six inches of sawdust between. Within this 
house, with a four-foot corridor around, was the 
interior house of one large room. In the center 
of it was a large stove and chimney, and around 
the chimney in the roof were panes of glass. 
In the winter it is so intensely cold here that all 
precautions are taken to keep in the heat. 

Nearby was Mr. Wellman's workshop, and 
next the great exposition-looking building in 
which his balloon "America" was floating in- 
flated, with the airship swinging beneath. The 
balloon was ready to be taken out at any moment 
and started on its career to the discovery of the 
North Pole. The balloon was the largest ever 
constructed, and had a lifting power of twenty 
thousand pounds. The airship beneath was over 
a hundred feet long, and at its bow swung a 
canvas life-boat made by my old college friend, 
Will Gamble, of Miamisburg. 

The airship had for its base or keel a gasoline 
tank about a foot in diameter and a hundred feet 
long, which carried over six thousand pounds of 
gasoline, or enough to furnish power for a voyage 
of eighteen hundred miles, while the distance to 
the pole and back was only twelve hundred miles. 
The airship had two screw propellers and a great 
rudder like a whale's tail. From the base of the 



SPITZENBERGEN AND THE ICE PACK IZ 

airship extended slender steel rods, over which 
were stretched thin silk for its sides. Within the 
ship were to go, beside Mr. Wellman, his three 
companions, of whom Major Hersey, who was a 
major in Roosevelt's Rough Riders, is a cele- 
brated long distance balloonist. The airship was 
also to carry six months' supplies and a dozen 
Eskimo dogs and sleds. The dogs were intelli- 
gent, fine-looking animals. 

When we reached Virgo Bay, Mr. Wellman 
was ready to sail, and was waiting only for the 
wind to change. For three weeks the wind had 
been blowing steadily from the pole. It was 
then late for the expedition, and it was several 
weeks later before they started. They ran into 
a snow-storm, became blinded, and finally came 
down on a glacier, wrecking largely their outfit. 

We gave a banquet on board the "Neptun" to 
Mr. Wellman and his companions, at which I 
happened to act as toastmaster. Mr. Wellman 
was in the best of spirits, and claimed that his 
method of reaching the pole was twentieth cen- 
tury, scientific, and reasonably safe. He said 
that he had no desire to become a martyr. I 
could not refrain from thinking after Major 
Hersey had exhibited and explained to me the 
airship and its workings, that it was the flimsiest, 
most unsubstantial looking structure ever built 
by man with which to discover an unknown 
world, and to gain immortality. 



74 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

Near Walter Wellman's airship house stands 
the cairn erected to the memory of Mr. Andree, 
the Swedish explorer, who from the same spot 
sailed away in a balloon with two companions on 
July 11, 1897, and from whom nothing was ever 
heard. Mr. Andree's deserted house was being 
used by Mr. Wellman's workmen. 

The next morning, as we sailed from Virgo 
Bay, the ''Neptun" and our sister ship, the "Kong 
Harold," which had overtaken us here, fired a 
salute and raised the American flag to their mast- 
heads, and dipped in honor of these American 
explorers, while Mr. Wellman and his associates 
stood on his doorsteps with the Stars and Stripes 
floating above his house, waving their hats and 
handkerchiefs until we rounded a promontory 
and were out of sight. The last emblem of 
civilization to be seen, as we sailed away from 
that polar, glacier-bound Virgo Bay, was the 
American flag projecting above a rock, and flying 
from the masthead of Mr. Wellman's Norwegian 
supply ship, the Fritzjof, and never looked a flag 
more beautiful. The first news that we received 
after reaching Europe was that the Fritzjof had 
attempted to follow us back to Europe, but in a 
fog had run into an iceberg and sunk. Fifteen 
Norwegian sailors were drowned, and only one 
was saved. That proudly-flying American flag 
became these Norwegian sailors' shroud. Such 



SPITZENBERGEN AND THE ICE PACK 75 

is the awful penalty in lives constantly being paid 
in the hunt for the North Pole. 

From Spitzbergen we sailed again northward 
over a hundred miles to the eternal ice-pack that 
surrounds the North Pole. As we approached, 
we met great wind-driven ice-fields, white with 
newly-fallen snow, among which we picked our 
way, until finally they became so large and num- 
erous that they threatened to form an ice-jam and 
hem us in. Ofif ahead was the great solid white 
ice-pack, which so far no arctic explorer has ever 
crossed. Here v/e paused and took our bearings. 
We were more than eighty-one degrees north, or 
within nine degrees of the Pole. We were within 
three hundred and fifty miles of the farthest north 
reached by Peary, and within about five hundred 
and forty miles of the pole itself. Due to the 
Gulf Stream, ships can approach nearer by open 
sea, the North Pole north of Spitzbergen, than at 
any other point. North of Alaska and Siberia 
the ice-pack extends down to seventy-three de- 
greeSrt This ice-pack is in a circular motion 
around the North Pole. Nansen entered the 
ice-pack at seventy-eight degrees with his ship 
Fram, which became frozen in, in 1893, and it 
swung around for three years, and left the ice- 
pack in 1896, just north of Spitzbergen, where we 
were. We now realized that we were in the 
farthest north, or on the top of the globe. 

The next problem was to get down and back 



76 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

to civilization. The return voyage was at times 
exciting. We had two nights, without fog or 
cloud, when the sun shone all night long. The 
sea was calm, the air was not bitingly cold, so 
these nights were glorious. 

The midnight sun is a curious phenomenon. 
The sun comes down towards the horizon in the 
north in a crescent course, and as it does so, it 
seems to grow larger and redder until it appears 
like a great ball of fire, and at the same time it 
loses its strength, so that one can easily look at 
it with his naked eye. Yet it was bright enough 
at midnight for the photographer to take our 
pictures, and many of us snapped old Sol himself. 
Near the horizon the sun appears to pause for a 
few moments, and then slowly to rise again, 
gathering a fresher brightness as it ascends. 
When the sun is near the horizon nature seems 
to grow strangely quiet, and the eider-down duck, 
and other arctic birds drop down into the icy 
water to sleep on the waves. Then no white 
plumaged birds were to be seen in the air, but 
only now and then some strange black-feathered 
bird would dart frightened across the sky as if 
seeking darkness for his rest. There is such a 
strange weirdness and unnaturalness about this 
midnight sun that even people grow nervous and 
restless, and are glad to return to lands with 
nights of darkness. 

On our return we followed the Spitzbergen 




V 



C 

3 

CO 




SPITZENBERGEN AND THE ICE PACK 11 

coast for some distance. Great black, barren, 
jagged rocks rise thousands of feet up from the 
sea, while mighty glaciers sweep majestically 
around their sides. We passed close to the 
Seven Sister glaciers. Seven of these giant 
glaciers at one place swing around the steep 
mountain sides, and come down to the sea, pre- 
senting a perpendicular ice-cliff two to three 
hundred feet in height. As I saw them the 
midnight sun was throwing its horizontal rays 
against their crystal front, creating a scene of 
indescribable cold brilliancy and grandeur. I 
know the Canadian Rockies and the Alps, but they 
seem tame and civilized compared with the wild 
and awful grandeur of the cold ice-peaks of 
Spitzbergen. To see the bleak, glittering beauty 
and brilliancy of the ice-peaked, glacier-wrapped 
mountains of Spitzbergen well repays one for 
all the discomforts and dangers of the voyage. 
On our return we had fog, and ice, and danger, 
too. About one o'clock one foggy morning I met 
the captain, who had just come down from the 
bridge, in the salon, and we stood and talked for 
a little while about his Norwegian country. I 
finall)^ asked him when we would meet the ice 
again, and he had hardly replied, "In about two 
or three hours," when the engines suddenly stop- 
ped, reversed, and the captain, shouting, ''Ice," 
ran for the bridge. I followed on deck, and saw 
that the "Kong Harold" 'had run into the ice 



78 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

about one hundred and fifty feet ahead of us, 
and had swung across our bows, while we were 
charging down on her center. That we would 
cut her in two seemed inevitable. She seemed 
to crunch, however, up on the ice-floe, while we 
reversed and swung around. How we escaped 
her I never could explain, although I was watch- 
ing it all. The "Kong Harold" was supposed to 
be in our rear, following us, as we had the ice- 
pilot, but in the fog she had gotten in the lead, 
and had run into the ice. So heavy was the fog 
that as soon as we swung past her we lost her. 
Now both vessels took to blowing their fog 
horns continually, at the same time creeping cau- 
tiously along. Neither vessel dared to move 
much for fear of running down the other. In a 
dense fog sounds are very deceptive. At one 
moment the "Kong Harold's" fog horn seemed to 
be sounding in one direction, and at the next 
moment it seemed to come from the opposite 
direction. For about two hours the two ships 
kept trying to locate one another, while the 
aroused passengers were pacing the deck in all 
sorts of nightly robes. It is very exciting to be 
standing on a deck not knowing at what moment 
another ship is going to poke her bow right 
through where you happen to be standing. Fin- 
ally the "Kong Harold" jangled her bells like fire- 
alarm bells, and they sounded so near that I felt 
as if I could put my hand over the railing, out 



SPITZENBERGEN AND THE ICE PACK 79 

into the fog, and touch them. At last the fog 
lifted a little, and right off our stern, but a hun- 
dred feet away, suddenly loomed the "Kong 
Harold," and as it unexpectedly emerged from 
the fog never looked to me any other ship as big 
as that Norwegian yacht. 

The fog finally passed entirely away, and then 
we ran into a day or so of rough seas. After 
weathering the storms, we at last sailed in safety 
into the beautiful harbor at Hammerfest, the 
most northerly town in the world. We were 
back again to Europe and civilization. Our 
chief engineer relieved his feelings by saying, 
"Whoever goes to Spitzbergen and the ice- 
pack and calls it a pleasure trip must be a luna- 
tic." Many of the passengers agreed with him. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THROUGH NORWAY. 

FROM Hammerfest, in the northwestern corner 
of Europe, to Christiania, in the southwestern 
corner, is an interesting trip. 

Not far from Hammerfest we stopped in the 
Lyngenfjord to visit a Lapland camp. Here, 
about a mile back from the fjord, was an encamp- 
ment of Laplanders and their herd of five hundred 
reindeer. These Laplanders lived here in small 
earthen huts, shaped like a mound, with a door 
on one side, and a round hole in the center of 
the roof which acts as both chimney and window. 
I stepped into several of these huts, although the 
odor was not inviting, and the general appear- 
ance suggested fleas. The interior consisted of 
one circular room about twelve feet in diameter, 
with a roof seven feet high in the center, sloping 
down into side walls. In the center some sticks 
were piled up for a fire, and scattered about were 
a few rude cooking utensils. Around the low 
sides of the room were lying furs and cedar 
branches on which the whole family slept. Here, 
too, was a little cradle made of leather with a 
hood' to protect the baby's eyes. When the 
mother or sisters wish to carry the baby they 




Laplanders at Tromsb 



THROUGH NORWAY 81 

pick up cradle and all. In a single earthen rcK>m 
like this, Lapland families are born, grow up, 
and die. It hardly suggests a home. 

The Laplanders are a queer people. Like the 
American Indians, they are a dying race. There 
are only some twenty thousand of them left. 
They lead a nomadic life in the regions of Europe 
within the arctic circle. A German artist, who 
was living among them, painting their pictures, 
said that he found in all of their countenances a 
melancholy expression, as if they realized that 
they belonged to a race that would soon be 
extinct. 

The Laplanders are a diminutive people, usu- 
ally, and have strange Asiatic faces, and a pecu- 
liar shuffling, weak-kneed walk, resulting from 
constant climbing over rocks and rough ground 
in pasturing their reindeer. 

Their blouses and trousers, even in summer, 
are frequently of fur, and their blouses have large 
pouches into which they stufif all kinds of articles. 
Their odd-shaped, four-cornered caps and big fur 
shoes are often fantastically trimmed with bright 
colors. Beneath their caps frequently shines, 
through their unwashed faces, a bright, quizzical 
smile. They seem good-natured, and like Asi- 
atics appear to enjoy bartering, as they sell their 
trinkets to the foreigners. 

At this encampment there were about five 
hundred reindeer. Their first appearance to me 



82 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

was one of surprise, on account of the smallness 
of their bodies and the bigness of their horns. 
They are not as large as they look in Santa Claus 
books. They are agile little animals with big fur 
covered antlers. When several hundred of them 
are huddled together their horns look like a 
dense, tangled undergrowth. Off their reindeer 
the Laplanders largely live. They drink their 
milk, eat their meat, wear their fur, and of their 
bones and horns make implements and trinkets. 
Reindeer meat tastes much like venison, and is 
very good eating. These same reindeer, when 
the snow is on the ground, act as horses as well 
as cows, and are fleet-footed drawers of the cu- 
rious sleds, that, without runners, sit down in the 
snow. 

We sailed next down among the Lofoten 
Islands, passing the Maelstrom, described by 
Edgar Allan Poe. Between the Lofoten Islands 
and Greenland the Atlantic Ocean is at its nar- 
rowest, being only seven hundred miles wide. 

We stopped at Torghattan, a small rocky island 
that rises up out of the sea in the shape of a 
market hat, which causes it to get its name, and 
has through it a natural tunnel. This tunnel is 
about four hundred feet above the sea, is about 
five hundred feet long, fifty feet wide, and from 
sixty-five to over two hundred and fifty feet high 
at its opposite ends. The view of the distant 
sea and islands through this natural telescope is 



THROUGH NORWAY 83 

very strange. Once the waves of the sea washed 
this tunnel through the great rock, and after- 
wards in the convulsions of nature it was lifted 
high above the waters. Now it is one of the 
natural wonders of the world. 

At Gudvangen, at the head of one of the most 
magnificent fjords, we left, with regret, our good 
ship, the "Neptun," and our pleasant fellow voy- 
agers of many lands, and began our overland 
journey across Norway. The first night we 
drove up a narrow valley with almost perpen- 
dicular sides thousands of feet high to the very 
picturesquely situated hotel at Stalheim. The 
scenery here is so grand that the Emperor of 
Germany makes yearly pilgrimages in his yacht 
to this fjord, and up to the Stalheim hotel. Na- 
ture, in magnificent panorama, displays valleys, 
mountains, glaciers, and waterfalls. 

The next day we returned to the fjord, crossed 
a narrow arm, and after spending Sunday at a 
quiet little Norwegian village, with a very neat 
and comfortable little inn, began bright and early 
on Monday morning a five-day carriage drive 
over the famous Valders' route across Norway. 

For the drive the three ladies from Dayton took 
a large comfortable two-horse carriage with 
plenty of heavy, warm rugs, while I rode in the 
light, native "kariol." This is a little vehicle with 
a seat for one, like a sulky^^yith a board behind on 
which is fastened the baggage, and to which and 



84 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

to the axle, someliQw clings the boy or sometimes 
the girl who drives. About every ten miles there 
is a posting station at which are changed vehicle, 
horse, and driver. The result is one constantly 
has a fresh horse and a new driver. Some of 
these little drivers, trying to pick up English, are 
entertaining companions, and one dislikes to part 
with them so rapidly. The small Norwegian 
horses are stout and swift, and, by means of these 
light kariols, one can drive long distances very 
quickly. 

The celebrated Valders' route across Norway 
is over smooth winding roads along mountain 
streams and lakes, amid varying beautiful scen- 
ery. From one of these small mountain streams, 
hardly larger than a brook, I saw a fine salmon, 
weighing twenty-seven pounds, that an English- 
man had just caught. Over his catch he was 
prouder than a king. 

It was the first of September when we were 
crossing, and the summer season was over, and 
winter was approaching. Newly-fallen white 
snow was on the mountain sides, while frost 
was beginning to cut the potato tops down in 
the valleys. Along the roads the farmers were 
driving down from their "saters," or summer 
mountain farms, their cattle. Now and then it 
would take quite a little while for us to work our 
kariol on the narrow mountain road through a 
drove of fifty or a hundred of these fine-looking 



THROUGH NORWAY 85 

cattle, that had been fattened during the summer 
on the rich pasturage upon these mountain farms. 

As we reached the top of the divide we ran into 
a blinding, driving snow-storm, that almost froze 
the driver and myself in our airy kariol before we 
reached the next hotel. It seemed strange to be 
shivering and chattering, and hunting fire the 
first week in September. After we passed over 
the mountain top, we came down again into the 
warm, pleasant valleys, and drove among quieter, 
but beautiful scenery until we reached the rail- 
way that leads to Christiania. 

This whole mountain drive is very delightful. 
The scenery is varied. It ranges from the wild 
to the quiet. The little homes and farms passed 
are pleasing in appearance. Along the route is 
one of the three famous ancient wooden churches 
of Norway, about a thousand years old, with tim- 
bers black as if charred by age. The architec- 
ture is very strange, and the roof suggests an 
inverted hull of an old viking's ship with extend- 
ing beak. 

Some of the customs observed are curious, but 
pleasing. From a farmhouse, near to a little 
village, a funeral procession was just starting as 
we passed. In front of the farm along the road 
cedar branches were spread, and across the road 
in front of every farm gate on the way to the 
village church were also scattered sprays of 



86 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

cedar. It seemed to me a simple, but a pleasing 
token of esteem for the departed neighbor. 

We finally reached Christiania, Norway's cap- 
ital, a clean, prosperous, beautiful, growing city, 
with nearly two hundred thousand inhabitants. 
There are to the specialist in Norse history many 
objects of interest here, but chief to the casual 
traveler are two old viking ships, which, after 
having been buried in mounds for a thousand 
years or more, have recently been exhumed, and 
are now exhibited in the University Museum. 
The earth of these mounds was a sort of potter's 
clay, that so preserved the wood that even the 
carving on the beak is in a good condition. 
These ships are each about seventy feet long, and 
were used as burial tombs. Sometimes, accord- 
ing to the old Norse custom, when a viking or 
sea king was about to die, as Marie Correlli has 
described it in Thelma, the viking would be 
carried on board his ship, the sail hoisted, and 
as the wind would carry it out to sea, the torch 
would be applied, and the viking and the ship 
in flame would be wafted up to paradise. 

At other times the old ship of the dead king 
would be hauled upon the beach, above the waves, 
and the cabin would be converted into a sepul- 
cher. In it would be placed the viking, and with 
him, sometimes, his horses and his dogs and his 
jewels, that all might go in spirit to the other 



THROUGH NORWAY 87 

world. The whole would be covered then with 
clay, making a great burial mound. 

From two of these mounds these two old ships 
have been dug. Each is about seventy feet long, 
and about twenty feet wide at the beam. One 
was the war-ship of a viking, the other the 
pleasure craft of a viking's queen. In one were 
found the remains of an old viking and his 
horses and his dogs, and in the other the ashes 
of the queen and of one of her maid-servants, 
who had been killed that her spirit might go with 
that of her queen. These are suggestive old 
relics. They speak of the days when these hardy 
northern sea roamers brought terror even to 
sunny Sicily, and when they braved the storms 
of the north Atlantic and peopled Iceland, and 
possibly set foot on the barren shores of New 
England. 

The modern Norwegians are fine, vigorous 
descendants of the old sea roamers. They are 
as sturdy, honest, handsome specimens of men as 
can be found in any part of the world. They 
are mostly a happy, contented, energetic, edu- 
cated, church-going people. Their church is the 
Lutheran. On the seas they are to be found in 
almost every ship, and there is no more skillful, 
self-reliant, and reliable sailor. At home, on their 
farms, and in their towns they are sober, indus- 
trious, and economical. They are seldom rich. 
Their fare is plain. Fish and potatoes make a 



88 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

large part of their eating. Travelers receive 
much of the same fare. The fish is fine, but 
boiled potatoes served with each course at a 
dinner made us appreciate the homage that the 
people of Gothenburg feel for the man who intro- 
duced potatoes into Scandinavia, as we looked 
upon his statue that they have erected in one of 
their broad thoroughfares to his memory. 

As fine as the Norwegian men, though, and 
better looking are the light-haired, fair-skinned 
Norwegian women and girls. In the shops and 
hotels I met many of them, and I was always 
surprised at their brightness and knowledge. 
As in all countries, the girl who works is inter- 
esting. Work harnesses her energies, gives pur- 
pose to her life, widens her opportunities, broad- 
ens her sympathies, and quickens her intellect. 
In the hotel office at Stalheim were three inter- 
esting Norwegian girls who had never been a 
hundred miles from their little village, and yet 
who spoke fluently, French, German, and English. 
One had sold postal cards to the Emperor of 
Germany, to the King of Denmark, and to the 
King of Norway, and she showed me souvenirs 
given her by her royal patrons. Their salaries 
were small. One, I remember, was a telegraph 
operator, and she received four dollars a week, 
three of which she paid back for her board. 

Up in a little mountain hotel, one chilly morn- 
ing, I came early into the hotel office and found 



THROUGH NORWAY 89 

the maid down on her hands and knees trying 
to blow life into a green wood fire. As an experi- 
ment I said good morning to her in English, and 
she quickly replied in English. I asked her how, 
up in the mountains, she had learned such good 
English, and she told me that she had been born 
and raised on one of these mountain farms, but 
she had managed to go to school in Christiania 
where she had studied English, and was now a 
teacher in the Christiania schools, and expected 
to study French at night the following winter. 
She said that love of the mountains and a desire 
to earn a little money caused her to come up to 
this mountain hotel to act as maid during the 
summer, and then she resumed her efforts to 
make the fire burn. 

In Christiania we noticed that Ibsen's Doll 
House was to be played by the same company 
that the night before our arrival had played to 
the Queen of England, to the Empress Dowager 
of Russia, and to the Queen of Norway. We 
were anxious to see it, but none of us understood 
Norwegian. In a curio shop we found a very 
bright Norwegian girl who spoke English. We 
invited her to go to the theater as our interpreter, 
which she did, and we found that she had studied 
English in England, French in France, and Ger- 
man in Germany. I asked her how she kept up 
her languages, and she replied that her rule was 
always to have on hand to be read one French 



90 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

and one English book. She keenly appreciated 
all the niceties of Ibsen's masterpiece, and quickly- 
interpreted them to us in good English. 

The Norwegian children are always attractive 
to the traveler. They are a polite little people. 
Frequently, in foreign countries, I will buy a bag 
of fruit, and, after eating what little I desire, 
make some children smile by presenting it to 
them. In Bergen I had bought for about ten 
cents a quart of the most luscious strawberries 
that one could desire, and, after eating what I 
wanted, presented the bag to a little boy and 
girl of about seven or eight summers. The little 
girl made a delightful courtesy as she took the 
bag, and the little boy put out his hand so quickly 
at me that at first he startled me, until I discov- 
ered that he wanted to thank me by shaking 
hands with me. After that I found that it was 
the custom of the boys very gravely to shake 
hands with one whenever presented with any- 
thing. 

There is an attractive politeness about the 
Norwegian people. The Spaniards and Norwe- 
gians are often said to be alike in their politeness. 
Both are proud of their ancestry. Every Span- 
iard believes that he is the descendant of a 
hidalgo, and every Norwegian claims descent 
from a viking. Both, therefore, believe that they 
have royal blood in their veins, and carry them- 
selves with the independence of descendants of 



THROUGH NORWAY 91 

kings. But between the politeness of the Span- 
iard and Norwegian there has always seemed to 
me to be the difference that the Spaniard is 
reserved and stately in his politeness, while the 
Norwegian is cordial. The Norwegian bows his 
head to no man, yet he greets every man cor- 
dially as an equal. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ACROSS SWEDEN AND DENMARK. 

From Christiania to Stockholm is a night's 
ride. The most interesting event of the trip is 
the supper. About ten o'clock the train reaches 
a little station where it stops half an hour for 
supper. The supper is served in the station 
dining-room. Every one helps himself as plen- 
tifully and as frequently as he wishes of the 
many tempting dishes of fish, chicken, game, and 
fruits, and pays as he leaves. While the passen- 
gers have been eating, porters on the sleepers 
have made up the berths, and they are all ready 
for occupancy. There has been no confusion. 
The cars are very comfortable stateroom cor- 
ridor cars. 

Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, is a hand- 
somely built, progressive-looking city, with a 
population of about 350,000 people. The streets 
are wide and well-paved, and are traversed by an 
excellent system of electric cars. As a residence 
place, it is one of the most delightful cities of 
Europe. 

In Stockholm there are a number of interest- 
ing buildings. The most imposing is the old 
palace. It occupies a commanding position in 



ACROSS SWEDEN AND DENMARK 93 

the center of the city. The reigning family is 
quite democratic in its habits, and it is easy to 
obtain access to the palace. One day I walked 
up to the palace with a friend and rang the door- 
bell. A maid answered, and invited us in, and 
told us to walk around and to make ourselves at 
home until a guide would come for us. For 
about fifteen minutes we roamed through the 
home of royalty by ourselves. 

It is a great palace, grandly furnished. There 
are the same polished floors, crystal chandeliers, 
tapestries, marble tables, and gilt furniture that 
one finds in the state apartments of all the great 
European palaces. French tastes and factories 
have furnished them all. The living apartments 
were furnished in a home-like style. They 
looked like the living rooms of any well-to-do 
family. 

Several rooms in the apartments of the crown 
prince, the present king, had their own individ- 
uality. In one there is a large table with an 
embankment of loving cups won in tennis tour- 
naments. The crown prince has been one of 
the Swedish tennis champions. In his wife's 
rooms were bridge whist sets and scores. An- 
other room of the present king contains the 
trophies of his hunting expeditions. The walls 
are covered with deer horns and heads, while the 
center of the room is occupied with stuffed bears, 
crocodiles, and other large game that the king 



94 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

has killed. Our venerable guide said that tennis- 
playing and hunting were about the only things 
that the present king enjoys. 

Not far from the palace is the last resting-place 
of royalty, old Riddarholms Church, the West- 
minster Abbey of Sweden. It is an old brick 
Lutheran Church, built centuries ago, with a cast 
iron spire about three hundred feet high. The 
bricks of the church look worn and weather 
beaten, and the exterior is unattractive. The 
interior is a large, bare, cold-looking room. Its 
pavement is of monumental flagstones, beneath 
which are buried Swedish knights of the past 
centuries. Around the sides of the church are 
raised chapels, and beneath them crypts, into 
which one can look through the doors of iron 
grating. In these crypts are piled promiscuously 
the gilt coffins of Swedish royalty and nobility, 
bearing various dates and insignia. A conspicu- 
ous coffin, near the entrance, has on the end the 
date of April 7, 1651, and beneath the date the 
representation of a skull and cross-bones. 

Near the front of the church, opposite one 
another, are the chapels of Sweden's two great 
warrior monarchs, Gustavus Adolphus, the 
Protestant hero of the Thirty Years' War, and 
Charles XII, called the Meteor of the North, 
whom Peter the Great of Russia claimed taught 
him and his Russians how to fight by defeating 
them so repeatedly. These two kings are the 



ACROSS SWEDEN AND DENMARK 95 

greatest Sweden has produced, and both fell on 
battle-fields in foreign lands, and the remains of 
both were brought home to rest in this old brick 
Lutheran Church. Around their chapels are 
banners and battle-flags that they captured. 

Stockholm has one of the most unique and 
famous parks in Europe, known as Skansen. It 
is an open air museum showing Swedish pro- 
vincial life during the past centuries. In this 
great rolling park are constructed dwellings, and 
barns, and old mills after the manner of the 
Swedish farm buildings of past times, and in 
them are gathered old furniture. The custodians 
of the different buildings are dressed in the 
picturesque bright local costumes of those days. 
Every afternoon during the summer children 
dressed in these olden costumes give the Swedish 
folk dances, some of which are amusing as well 
as graceful. Present life in the different prov- 
inces is also represented, and here one can see 
the Laplanders with their huts and tents and 
reindeer. 

Among the peculiarities of Stockholm are the 
many telephones. They are even to be found in 
the street market-stands on market-days. There 
are two telephone systems, one owned by the 
State and the other by a private company. The 
State has about fifteen thousand subscribers, and 
the private company about forty-five thousand 
subscribers, while the rates of the private com- 



96 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

pany are much higher than those of the State. 
Here is an interesting case of a private corpora- 
tion competing successfully with the government, 
and at the same time charging almost double for 
its services. This same company owns a tele- 
phone system in Moscow, Russia, and in Mexico 
City, Mexico. Its rates are low, and its stock 
is very valuable. 

Around Stockholm are many beautiful summer 
resorts and summer homes, picturesquely placed 
amid almost primeval forests on rocky islands. 
A ride among these islands down to the Baltic 
Sea is as beautiful a trip as one through the 
Inland Sea of Japan. 

A pleasant day's expedition is up to Upsala, 
about seventy miles north of Stockholm, in which 
quiet little city is located the venerable Univer- 
sity of Sweden. Its history covers centuries, 
and among its celebrated professors was Lin- 
nseus, the botanist. The University library 
contains some very valuable old manuscripts. 
The buildings are in no way exceptionally strik- 
ing. The University is coeducational, and the 
boys and girls had a steady, serious appearance, 
yet they lare not lacking in youthful enthusiasm. 
In Upsala is the finest old cathedral in Sweden, 
and there is also here an imposing old castle. 
Not far away is Gamla Upsala, the stronghold 
of the early pagan kings of Sweden, and near by 
are their great funeral mounds. 



ACROSS SWEDEN AND DENMARK 97 

A canal-boat ride across Sweden, from Stock- 
holm to Gothenburg, by the Gota Canal is one of 
the most interesting trips in Europe. It is a 
trip of about four hundred miles, and takes from 
three to four days. We went aboard a very com- 
fortable little steamer one evening, and before 
daybreak we were steaming away through nar- 
row winding canals down from Stockholm to the 
Baltic Sea. After being out in the open sea for 
a few hours, we turned into a bay, and soon 
were entering the famous Gota Canal. 

This canal is about two hundred and sixty 
miles long, with seventy-four locks. The highest 
level reached by the canal is over three hundred 
feet. At several places there is a series of locks, 
so that the passengers can leave the steamer 
between locks and take pleasant walks along the 
grass-grown tow-paths, and stop in at the farm- 
houses. 

The locks are one hundred and twenty-three 
feet long and twenty-four feet wide, and the 
steamers are about one hundred and twenty feet 
long and twenty feet wide, so that they fill com- 
fortably the lock. 

The canal is well constructed. It is ten feet 
deep, forty-eight feet wide at the bottom, and 
eighty feet wide at the surface. The banks are 
protected so that there is little wash from the 
boats. 

The traffic on this canal is very large. On the 



98 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

western end some seven or eight thousand boats 
pass annually, and on the eastern side about half 
that number. The freight traffic is heavy. Our 
boat was loaded down with all sorts of freight 
for the small villages along the canal. Many 
tourists to Stockholm take this quiet, picturesque 
route through interior Sweden. The canal passes 
through a rich agricultural country, and along 
its banks are many small towns and villages with 
venerable stone churches and interesting ruined 
castles. 

Along the route are the two great lakes of 
Sweden, Lake Wettern and Lake Wenern. Lake 
Wettern is about eighty miles long and twelve 
miles broad, but it can churn up a most disagree- 
able sea. We crossed it in a storm, and most 
of the passengers had the same sensations that 
they have in a choppy crossing of the English 
Channel. Lake Wenern is some hundred miles 
long and fifty miles wide, and is usually better 
behaved than its sister lake. 

From Lake Wenern the boat drops down 
around Trolhattan Falls, and finally reaches 
Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden. The 
Trolhattan Falls are the Niagara Falls of Europe. 
They are more than a hundred feet high, and over 
them pour the waters of the great lakes of 
Sweden. They are not exceedingly picturesque, 
and their beauty is marred by the manufacturing 
establishments that have been built about them. 



ACROSS SWEDEN AND DENMARK 99 

These little canal steamers are very pleasant 
and comfortable. The staterooms are small, 
but neat and clean. The dining-room upon the 
upper deck is built with windows all around so 
that one can enjoy the scenery while eating. 
The meals are excellent. The Swedish smorgas- 
bord is here found. It is a sideboard on which 
are placed various appetizers or relishes in the 
way of fish, bread and butter, and liqueurs, to 
which one goes and helps himself before eating 
the dinner proper. This smorgasbord is a pecul- 
iar Swedish institution, and upon it oftentimes 
are so many attractive little dishes, that some- 
times I felt that I could enjoy a dinner from it, 
rather than from the regular dinner-table. 

On this little boat we found tourists from many 
lands who spoke English, and thus made a very 
pleasant international or cosmopolitan party. 
There was an old Norwegian-American couple 
who, after having gone to California in their 
youth, some forty years before, had returned to 
visit their native land. There was a pathos in 
the description of their disappointments. Back 
home was not what they had fancied it to be. 
The houses, the trees, and mountains of Norway 
were unchanged, the old lady said, but they did 
not look so large or so attractive as she had 
pictured them in her memory. For forty years, 
she said, she had been talking about the trees of 
her native Norway and longing for them, but 



100 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

when she revisited them she would not exchange 
the trees of California for them. Then they both 
became eloquent in their praises of California. 

Another interesting family was a dark-skinned 
Persian one from Rangoon, Burmah. The 
daughters had studied in the schools of Lx^ndon. 
The mother opening her hand - satchel, the 
daughters asked her to show some of its con- 
tents, and she brought out two long strands 
of pearls, a necklace of large pearls, and rubies 
and diamonds in rings and pins. She said that 
her husband could never resist buying a beau- 
tiful stone. I roughly estimated that this East- 
ern family had with them some thirty to forty 
thousand dollars worth of the gems of the Orient. 

These Persian girls were very curious about 
America, which they wished to visit on their way 
home, and were asking numerous questions about 
it when a sort of a cosmopolitan lady, who was 
smoking a cigaret, spoke up and told her ex- 
periences in this country and her impressions of 
it. She prefaced her remarks by saying that she 
had lived in so many countries that she had no 
national prejudices, for she was born in Australia, 
while one of her grandfathers was a Spaniard 
from Chili, that she was educated in France and 
Germany, had lived with some of her relatives 
in England, and had married a Scotchman, and 
that together they had traveled everywhere, and 
in the course of their travels had visited America 



ACROSS SWEDEN AND DENMARK 101 

and had been entertained in the homes of Ameri- 
cans whose names are known here to every one. 

With that introduction she said that the 
thought: of America always gave her the night- 
mare. It was a land of rush, where in the cities 
policemen and street-car conductors are con- 
stantly saying, "Step lively, lady." Finally, she 
said, in Boston she went to a cemetery to get a 
quiet place in which to sit down and collect her 
thoughts. The Persians asked her about our 
railroad trains. She said that their principal 
characteristic was that they are always late, and 
that the first thing an American does when he 
goes to a station is to ascertain how late the 
train is. In Europe the trains start on the 
minute. In the train, she said, there is no privacy. 
She had often heard of our sleeping-cars and was 
anxious to try one. She found the car to be 
one big sleeping-room with curtained bunks, and 
as she happened to be located near a crying in- 
fant and a snoring man she could not sleep. 

Speaking of American girls, she said that they 
had the gum-chewing habit, and she imitated the 
grimaces of gum-chewing. In Europe chewing- 
gum is unknown, and these Persian girls had 
never heard of it. They were very curious about 
it, and afterwards I received a postal from one, 
saying that some American had given her a stick 
of gum, that she had tried it, and that it was very 
good. This cosmopolitan lady concluded by 



102 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

saying that the Americans as a whole are among 
the brightest and most attractive people that she 
had ever met, and then she resumed smoking her 
cigaret. A venerable English lady next spoke 
up and said that she had crossed America twice 
alone in trips around the world, and that what 
most impressed her with America was the uni- 
form courtesy and politeness of the men. She 
said that trainmen, policemen, and all men that 
she met were always so ready and willing to 
assist her. Thus with freedom, and cutting crit- 
icism, caricature, and compliments this inter- 
national canal-boat party discussed America, but 
not always to the approval of the Americans in 
the party. 

Gothenburg, at the eastern end of the Gota 
Canal, is the second city in size in Sweden, and 
has a population of about one hundred thousand. 
It is a busy commercial port, and has a solid, 
prosperous appearance. 

From Gothenburg we took a very fine train 
down to Copenhagen, the train being ferried 
across the straits at Helsingborg from Sweden 
to Denmark. Copenhagen is another delight- 
ful Scandinavian capital, with a population 
of almost half a million. It is an attractive city 
with good hotels, fine residences, stores, and 
theaters. It has a number of excellent art gal- 
leries and museums. 

Copenhagen was the home of Thorwaldsen, the 



ACROSS SWEDEN AND DENMARK 103 

great sculptor, whose Lion of Lucerne is known 
to all. T'horwaldsen was the son of an Ice- 
lander who came to Copenhagen and worked as 
a ship carpenter and carver, carving the images 
that formerly adorned the bows of ships. Thor- 
waldsen died in Copenhagen, and his body is 
placed in the center of a museum in which are 
gathered many of his works. 

In Copenhagen is another fine art collection, 
housed in a magnificent building, all the gift of 
a wealthy brewer to his native city. It is one 
of the most attractive museums in Europe. 

Copenhagen is a favorite summer place for 
European royalty. The Empress Dowager of 
Russia, and Queen Alexandra of England have 
pleasant residences on the edge of the city. They 
are both daughters of the old King of Denmark. 
I was talking to a Danish sea captain, sailing 
under the English flag, about his Queen Alex- 
andra. He said, "God bless my queen, there is 
no better woman in all the world than Queen 
Alexandra.'^ He then went on to say that when 
he was a boy he lived in the same neighborhood 
with the Danish general who afterwards became 
King of Denmark, and that he went to school 
with his children, the King of Greece, the pres- 
ent King of Denmark, Queen Alexandra of 
England, and the Empress Dowager of Russia, 
and knew them all well. He said he had been in 
rough and tumble fights with the two kings, and 



104 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

that they always took hard hits well, but that 
Queen Alexandra was the general favorite. The 
queen had a very domestic mother, he said, and 
she taught the young Alexandra to cook, and sew, 
and mend, and to keep house like any other girl. 

In the neighborhood of Copenhagen are several 
interesting old castles and palaces. About 
twenty miles out is the Fredericksborg Castle, 
a very picturesque old structure, with several 
fine rooms. The Knights Hall and the Banquet- 
ing Hall are ornamented heavily with stucco and 
gold. The ornamentation is so profuse and 
ostentatious that it makes the old castle unique. 
The palace church is decorated in much the same 
style, and is the most highly ornamented church 
that I have seen in Europe. The pulpit is of 
ebony and embossed silver, and there is much 
ebony and ivory used in the decorations. 

At Fredericksborg we took a carriage and 
drove about twenty miles over a splendid road, 
stopping at the autumn residence of the royal 
family, with its beautiful park of beech trees, to 
Helsingor and the old castle of Kronborg. 

Kronborg is the castle of Hamlet, the Prince 
of Denmark. Here walked the ghost of Hamlet's 
father at midnight. 

This massive stone castle was built about 1575 
on the rocks by the narrow straits between Den- 
mark and Sweden so that all passing vessels 
would have to pay toll or duty to the Lord of 



ACROSS SWEDEN AND DENMARK 105 

the Castle. This channel duty was kept up by 
Denmark until 1857, when the interested nations 
paid to Denmark a large sum of money to have 
her cease collecting duty. The castle commands 
the narrow straits. 

The castle is a very picturesque structure. It 
is surrounded by a wide moat which is crossed by 
drawbridges. The castle is a great square 
four-story stone structure built about a large 
open court. Great towers rise from the four 
corners. Much of the castle is now used as a 
barracks. The old state apartments are kept 
unchanged, and here one sees where Hamlet had 
the players represent before the court the scene 
of his father's poisoning while he watched his 
mother's face. 

From the window of the tower room one can 
look down upon the ''platform before the Castle 
of Elsinore" upon which walked the ghost of 
Hamlet's father. It is now a part of the Flag 
Battery, and is cut oflf by a high fence and heavy 
doors so that usually visitors cannot walk upon 
the ramparts. As I was passing the gates I 
noticed them ajar, and as we were not supposed 
to be able to read Danish signs, two of us passed 
through, climbed up on the rampart, and walked 
up and down, and tried to recall Shakespeare's 
scene and the ghost. As it was about sunset and 
we were in the heavy shadows of the castle, we 
had almost conjured up the ghost when a sentry's 



106 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

unexpected voice right back of us so startled us 
that we felt that the ghost had arrived. 

Not far away Hamlet's grave, marked by an 
irregular mound of broken stones, is to be seen. 
There is no monument for poor Ophelia, or for 
old Polonius. 

After spending a week at Copenhagen my 
Dayton friends stopped off at the quaint old 
Hanseatic city of Liibeck, while I went on to that 
wonderful, modern German city, Berlin. Berlin 
is a magnificent city. Three times, at intervals 
of about five years, I have visited Berlin, and 
the progress it has made, and the perfection 
it bas attained in municipal management has 
made me wonder if any American city can ever 
overtake Berlin. No one can grow too enthusi- 
astic about Berlin. After a crowded week here 
I joined my friends in Hamburg, and a pleasant 
homeward trip on one of the great Hamburg- 
American ships completed our summer expedi- 
tion to the region of the Midnight Sun, and to the 
delightful Scandinavian countries. 



I 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SCOTCH EXPERIENCES. 

SCOTLAND is Presbyterian. It is the old- 
fashioned, bluestocking Presbyterianism. 
Its patron saint is John Knox. This man has left 
a deeper impression upon the Scotch people than 
any other of their national heroes. 

John Knox was a tremendous man in tem- 
pestuous times. He was the Martin Luther of 
Scotland. His life was one of fierce earnestness. 
He was first a Catholic priest, and then he became 
a Presbyterian preacher. He was next taken 
prisoner by Scotch and French Catholics, and 
for almost two years served on the seas, chained 
as a galley slave. That did not sweeten his dis- 
position. By the intercession of the King of 
England he was released and returned to Edin- 
burgh, where he became the great Scotch re- 
former. His church of St. Giles, the old Catholic 
Cathedral, which once had known sixty priests, 
became his throne of power. Here he thundered 
Puritan doctrines twice on Sunday, and thrice on 
week days to audiences of from three to four 
thousand people. In his denunciations he knew 
no fear. Publicly he reproved Mary Queen of 
Scots. Once he bitterly scolded her until the 



108 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

tears ran down her cheeks. They became bitter 
antagonists, and each demanded the life of the 
other. His church of St. Giles and his home, 
which are to-day visited by thousands of tourists, 
were on High Street, the principal thoroughfare 
of old Edinburgh, midway between Edinburgh 
Castle and Holyrood Palace, the residences of 
Mary. Here he could keep watch over both the 
castle and the palace. 

Between Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood 
Palace, Mary Queen of Scots, divided her time. 
Up in the castle, which stands on a high rock in 
the midst, and yet above the city, is shown the 
small room in which her son James VI. of Scot- 
land, and James I. of England was born. A 
small tower window is also pointed out from 
which Mary is said to have lowered her infant 
James, in a basket, with a long rope, down over 
the steep rock, so that Catholic priests might 
baptize him, and thus elude the watchful vigi- 
lance of the Scotch Puritans. 

Down at the other end of High Street is old 
Holyrood Palace. Here a brass plate in the floor 
marks the spot in Mary's audience room where 
Scotch nobles, almost in her presence, murdered 
her lover, Rizzio, the Italian music master. For 
centuries a blood stain indicated the spot, but 
now there is only a brass plate. I asked the 
old Scotch guard what had become of the blood 
stain, and he laughed and said that it was too 



SCOTCH EXPERIENCE 109 

much trouble to put fresh blood on to keep the 
stain bright, so they had inserted the tablet. 

Old Holyrood Palace is deserted now. Back 
amid the ruins of the abbey are buried the col- 
lected remnants of Mary's husband, Lord 
Darnley, who was blown up with gun-powder 
by the one-eyed pirate, Lord Bothwell, who next 
became Mary's husband, and who himself died 
some twenty years later, a raving maniac, chained 
to a stone column in a Danish prison. 

John Knox and Mary Queen of Scots, are both 
long since dead. The unfortunate, beautiful, 
romantic Mary lives in memory only as one of 
the world's debatable heroines; while John 
Knox has projected, through the centuries, his 
influence over Scotch habits and customs. 

Mary's castles and palaces are deserted, but 
John Knox's old church of St. Giles still breathes 
his spirit. Two tablets here tell the story. 
Sixty years or more after the death of John Knox, 
King Charles ordered the English Episcopal serv- 
ice read in St. Giles. Dean Hanna started to 
read the service when Jenny Geddes threw her 
stool at his head, which started a riot and broke 
up the service. One tablet is to this Jenny 
Geddes, who threw the stool; while another is 
to Dean Hanna, the first and last clergyman who 
ever attempted to read the Episcopal service in 
John Knox's church. That stool is prized so 



110 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

highly that still it is exhibited in the National 
Museum of Antiquities. 

I attended, one Sunday morning, military serv- 
ices in this old church. A Highland regiment, 
in its picturesque kilt uniform, came down from 
the castle with its band of bagpipes and engaged 
in the service. As the Presbyterian Church is 
the Scotch established church, there is consider- 
able ceremony about the entry of the minister. 
The minister, in a black gown, is preceded by the 
beadle, who wears a long gown with bright red 
trimmings, and carries a staff with a gold crook 
at the head which is hung up on the wall near 
the pulpit. This staff represents the king's 
authority for the minister to preach. 

People attend church on Sunday, and Sunday 
observance is carried to a great extent in Scot- 
land. Not only saloons are closed, but hotels 
can receive only bona fide travelers on Sunday. 
A resident of Edinburgh cannot go to an Edin- 
burgh hotel for his Sunday dinner. The livery 
stables are closed, and there is no Sunday pleas- 
ure driving. The great Caledonian Railway 
runs no Sunday trains, while the North British 
Railway, between Glasgow and Edinburgh, runs 
only two trains each way, which are slow and 
poorly patronized. The Scotch frown upon 
Sunday travel. 

In their Sunday-closing enthusiasm the Scotch 
close their churches against sightseers. I went 



SCOTCH EXPERIENCE 111 

to the Glasgow Cathedral one Sunday afternoon, 
and was surprised to find even the yard gates 
locked. It was the first time I ever found a 
cathedral closed in Europe. I lingered around, 
when the sexton appeared with a big bunch of 
keys. He unlocked the gate and let me in, and 
then unlocked the big cathedral door. When I 
entered I was very much surprised to find that he 
had a large congregation locked in. When the 
services ended, with a few Americans, I stopped 
to look at the famous stained glass windows, but 
soon the sexton cried all visitors must leave, and 
after us he locked the doors. I learned that it is 
not unusual to lock the congregations in the 
churches during the services. 

Some hotels close the day with religious serv- 
ices. One evening I was calling at one of the 
most popular hotels in Edinburgh, when at ten 
o'clock the gong sounded. My first thought 
was that a meal was to be served, knowing of 
the irregular meal hours in many countries, but 
I was soon surprised at seeing the parlor ar- 
ranged for evening prayers. All the maids of 
the hotels, wearing their white aprons and caps, 
filed in and took seats in the rear of the room, 
while the guests filled the center. Hymn-books 
were passed around, an organ was drawn out, 
and a big Bible was placed on the center-table. 
Some Scotchman took charge of the services. 
After singing of hymns, Bible reading, and pray- 



112 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

ers, there was a general saying of good-night, 
and lowering of lights, so I ended my call. 

Because the Scotch are religious and the 
saloons close on Sunday, and at ten o'clock on 
other days, it must not be thought that Scotland 
is the land of universal goodness. The slums 
of Glasgow and Edinburgh are among the worst 
in the world. I have seen more drunkenness 
here than in any other country, outside of Russia. 
On a Saturday night I went down to old High 
Street, now the slum center. There was here 
drunkenness, brawling, quarreling, and fighting. 
A couple of policemen were having their clothes 
torn off in an effort to arrest a frenzied, drunken 
woman. These streets suggested Bedlam. 

Monday morning I dropped into police court. 
Here are to be found as in all police courts, the 
physical and moral wrecks of humanity. This 
court was a study. Upon the bench sat a ven- 
erable white-haired, titled judge of great keen- 
ness, quickness, and decision. At the side were 
curtained corridors lined with waiting prisoners, 
who were shot out at quick intervals before the 
bar to make their plea, and to receive their sen- 
tences, or to be remanded for trial. At one time 
some twenty-five guilty of their first misde- 
meanor were lined up before the bar. The judge 
looked each sternly in the eye, while they seemed 
to quiver, and pronounced the single word, 
''Admonition," and they were set free. 



SCOTCH EXPERIENCE 113 

Finally, there was pushed out from the corridor 
a boy of twelve, and behind him at the bar stood 
his mother. The boy had stolen some fruit from 
a street-stand. The judge looked at the mother 
and said, "Will you give him the rule and the 
strap?" She answered that she would, and the 
judge was about to discharge the boy when the 
prosecutor interposed and said this was the boy's 
second offense. Then the judge knitted his eye- 
brows, and said, "This is a very serious matter; 
eight years in the reformatory." The mother 
almost fell in a faint. The mother and boy were 
quickly shoved into the corridor that led down 
to the prison. Two minutes were consumed in 
the trial. Though a lawyer, I kept questioning 
tbat stern judge's awful sentence upon the little 
Scotch boy. In a minute another prisoner was 
before the judge listening to his sentence. Some- 
how I could not forget the boy. I did not follow 
him to the reformatory, but I remembered that 
I was Chairman of the Committee on the Girls' 
Industrial Home of the Ohio House of Represen- 
tatives, and I wondered to what sort of a reforma- 
tory girls were sent that were sentenced by the 
same judge. I at once went to the Police In- 
spector, who very kindly gave me the credentials 
to visit the Scotch Girls' Industrial Home. 

I visited several of them. They are conducted 
quite differently, and it seemed to me not as 
successfully as our Ohio Girls' Industrial Home. 



114 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

In Scotland some forty to sixty girls are placed 
in a home conducted by private parties, and the 
State pays so much a week for each girl's board 
and education. I asked to see the industrial 
departments, and in one I was shown, at the end 
of the grounds, a long row of washtubs, in which 
from Monday morning to Saturday night the 
girls washed. 

Laundry was brought out from Edinburgh, 
and the institution was partly supported by the 
profits of the girls' washing. Such industrial 
training is a fraud perpetuated by state authority 
upon helpless girls. The girls in these homes 
are mostly trained to be housemaids, and I was 
told there was quite a demand for girls educated 
in these homes. 

In one of the homes I was invited to speak to 
the girls. There were about sixty of them sitting 
on narrow benches without backs, which backless 
benches are used in both the study and recrea- 
tion rooms. These girls sat as erect as if they 
had pokers down their backs, had unusually 
bright, ruddy cheeks, and looked remarkably 
strong and vigorous. I accordingly began by 
complimenting them upon their fine, healthy ap- 
pearance, when the principal interjected the 
statement that it was caused by their feeding 
them so well, that every morning they gave them 
a fine bowl of porridge, and on Sunday morning, 
as a delicacy, a nice slice of bread and butter. 



SCOTCH EXPERIENCE 115 

The principal then asked me to tell the girls what 
I liked for breakfast, and when I said an apple 
or an orange, she quickly interposed by saying 
that those were too expensive to give to a girl 
to eat. I continued, though, describing an Amer- 
ican meal, ending with the description of a big 
saucer of ice cream, possibly, in size, a little 
exaggerated, for in Europe one is given only a 
sample bite. Then I asked how many would 
like to come to America, and with their mouths 
watering for a bountiful American meal, they all 
enthusiastically raised their hands. 

The Scotch railways have a number of pecul- 
iarities. They have the usual no-check baggage 
system of Europe. You watch that your trunk 
is put on the baggage-car, and watch that it is 
put off at the right place, and that nobody else 
carries it off. At Edinburgh I wanted to dis- 
pose of some of my surplus baggage, so I took 
my larger case to the posting office to send it to 
Liverpool. After I had delivered my baggage 
I asked for a receipt, but I was told receipts were 
not given, but when I reached Liverpool I would 
simply have to identify my baggage. Just as I 
was leaving Edinburgh to go through the Tros- 
sachs, the thought struck me that I would lighten 
my baggage further by sending my dress suit 
case to Glasgow. I accordingly asked the hotel 
porter to express it there, but he said that he 
would toss it into the baggage-car, and that I 



116 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

would find it all right when I reached Glasgow 
at the lost-baggage office. As I rode away from 
Edinburgh that day, with my baggage scattered 
without any sign of a receipt, it struck me that 
I had trusted not only to fortune, but that I had 
tempted fate. Both pieces I found afterwards 
at their destination. 

The slowest railway train I ever discovered 
was in Scotland. I was invited by the American 
Consul General at Edinburgh, Mr. Fleming, to 
go with him, and some of his Scotch friends to 
the Marquis of Tweeddale's estate for an otter 
hunt. The railroad, before long, took us through 
a sparsely inhabited, but very rich and beautiful 
agricultural country. As there were grade cross- 
ings, and no watchmen at the crossings, there 
were locked gates on each side of the road across 
the railroad. When the train approached the 
country road, the engineer had to stop his train, 
get out and unlock the gates, pull his train 
through, and then wait until the brakeman could 
close and lock the gates after the train. 

This otter hunt was to me an interesting affair 
from the seriousness with which the Scotchmen 
regarded it. The hunt was for about two miles 
down a little stream that starts at a lake up in 
the very beautiful grounds of the Marquis of 
Tweeddale. The Master of the Hounds of 
Midlothian was there with his scarlet coat, and 
the whippers-in, who were to keep the dogs in 



SCOTCH EXPERIENCE 117 

the stream, and from chasing rabbits and other 
game, had their appropriate costumes. All the 
hunters had long pikes with which to beat up the 
reeds along the banks and to pound the otter. 
No fire-arms were allowed. There were about 
twenty-five otter hounds that bayed beautifully. 
The crowd was a mixed one, including one real 
live young lord. 

The hunt began up by the lake in the morning. 
For a long while the men with pikes splashed 
among the bushes on the banks, while the dogs 
swam hither and thither trying to scare out the 
otter. Then through the stream, under the lead 
of the Master of the Hounds, marched the men 
with high rubber boots, examining every clump 
of shrubbery for the expected otter. This kept 
up from nine in the morning to four in the after- 
noon, through intermittent hot sunshine and 
Scotch mists, without a bite to eat. Then I inno- 
cently inquired of one Scotchman how many 
otters they usually killed in one of these hunts, 
for I had promised otter claws to a number of my 
friends, when the Scotchman looked at me pity- 
ingly and said, "Why, man, there has not been 
an otter seen here since the one that was killed 
several years ago." "They seldom expect to 
find an otter when they have a hunt. The otter, 
of course, makes the hunt more exciting." 
My hunting enthusiasm then ended, and I re- 
paired to the village inn for refreshment. Before 



118 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

long the whole wet, enthusiastic party appeared. 
As they enjoyed their old Scotch whisky, they 
declared what a successful hunt it had been, 
although they had not gotten the trail of an otter, 
spoke of how well the dogs had acted, and they 
toasted vigorously the Master of the Hounds of 
Midlothian. 

From John Knox and Mary Queen of Scots, 
to an otter hunt may seem a long distance, 
yet the love of bright costumes and ceremony 
suggested a survival of the hunting-days of 
Mary^s court, and the earnestness of a hunt, 
without even the semblance of the prey, gave a 
hint that the seriousness of the Puritanical days 
has not passed wholly in Scotland. 



CHAPTER IX. 

LITERARY PILGRIMAGE. 

LIKE most visitors to Scotland, I made pil- 
grimage to the homes of Scott, Burns, and 
then down through the lake district of England 
where lived Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Ruskin. 

Sir Walter Scott is Scotland's literary hero. 
Born in Edinburgh, he lived, worked, and died in 
or near Scotland's capital celebrating in his 
poems and novels Scotch scenes and characters. 
His countrymen have recognized him as their 
great national writer, and in the park alongside 
Princess Street, which the Scotch people con- 
sider the most beautiful street in the world, they 
have erected to his memory as the chief ornament 
of their capital, the most magnificent monument 
ever constructed to do honor to a literary man. 
It rises over two hundred feet in height, is digni- 
fied with a heroic statue of himself with his 
favorite hound looking up into his face, and is 
ornamented with life-size statues of over thirty 
of the characters in his poems and novels. 

About fifty miles south of Edinburgh, Scott 
bought a large tract of ground, and upon it built 
a magnificent baronial castle, known as Abbots- 
ford. It is the most beautiful and costly home 
ever erected from the profits of literature. It is 
located in a valley, amid fertile rolling hills, on 



120 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

the bank of the fast- flowing River Tweed. The 
gardens about the house are stately and formal 
in appearance. The great house itself looks like 
a well-preserved castle of the days of chivalry. 
In a large hall, with a big fire-place, is a fine 
collection of old armor, and fire-arms, and bows 
and arrows of Robin Hood and Rob Roy days. 
It appears like the great hall of some powerful 
mediaeval baron. In one of the cases in this 
room are preserved a high gray hat and a 
peculiar gray suit, the last ones worn by Scott. 
Styles have changed so since that their appear- 
ance upon a street now would attract a crowd. 

The library is a very large room, looking out 
upon a wonderfully beautiful landscape of lawn, 
river, and woods. Thousands of rare and inter- 
esting books crowd the shelves, which reach to 
the ceiling. Scott's big writing-desk and chair 
are still here, the master genius alone being 
absent. 

Abbotsford now belongs to a great grand- 
daughter of Sir Walter Scott, and is kept in much 
the same condition in which it was when he 
lived. 

About eight miles south of Abbotsford, amid 
the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, Scott is buried. 
Beneath the pavement of a detached tower of 
this great, ruined, ivy-clad abbey Scott lies with 
his wife, son, and daughter about him. The old 
abbey is far from the haunts of man in a quiet, 



LITERARY PILGRIMAGE 121 

out-of-the-way place. About this last resting- 
place is a grandeur and quietness and beauty that 
seem appropriate for the sleeping genius who 
brought into life so many martial heroes and 
beautiful heroines. 

As I wandered through the ruins of the beauti- 
ful old Dryburgh Abbey with a young lady from 
Lexington, Kentucky, she told me, in all serious- 
ness, with a Kentuckian's pride, how Sir Walter 
Scott, in his youthful days, had visited Ken- 
tucky's blue grass capital, and how he was capti- 
vated by a Lexington belle, whom he described 
in his greatest heroine, Rebecca. The young 
lady was indignant when I doubted the accuracy 
of her historical statement, but I learned after- 
wards that there is a Lexington tradition that 
somewhere in Europe Sir Walter Scott had met a 
Lexington young lady, whom he admired so 
much that he described her as Rebecca. 

Sir Walter Scott's poem, the Lady of the Lake, 
is the best guide-book for a trip from Edinburgh 
through the Trossachs to Glasgow. It is a beauti- 
ful coaching and boating trip over purple, heather- 
covered mountains, and across lochs with dark 
shadows, through the country of the Scottish 
Chiefs, Robin Hood, and the Lady of the Lake. 
It takes one to Stirling Castle, with its prison of 
Rhoderick Dhu, and on the opposite hill. Sir 
William Wallace's towering monument. 



122 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

At Glasgow, in the museum, is Whistler's 
wonderful painting of Thomas Carlyle. Whistler 
has portrayed that grim old Scotchman in his old 
age, with a face of infinite sadness and weariness. 
It is the saddest, most wearied face I have ever 
seen in painting. 

About forty miles below Glasgow, on the coast, 
is the quiet little town of Ayr. Here was born 
Robert Burns, and his life largely centers about 
this small town. 

In many ways Scott and Burns are antitheses. 
Scott was a patrician, Burns a plebeian. Scott 
was born in plenty, and lived amid luxury. Burns 
was born in poverty, lived in poverty, and died 
almost a pauper. Scott was the national singer. 
Burns was a universal singer. Everywhere 
struggling, suffering humanity loves the poems 
of Robert Burns. 

At the edge of Ayr still stands, although some- 
what restored, the cottage in which, on a stormy 
night, Robert Burns was born. The story is 
told in Ayr that the night Burns was born the 
thatched roof was in such a bad condition that 
the snow and wind broke it in, so that his mother 
and himself were carried to a neighbor's house. 
The guide about the church-yard pointed out the 
grave of the good neighbor who took them in. 

In this one-story thatched-roof cottage, of three 
rooms, Burns was born. This small cottage com- 
bines under one roof, stable and house. The 



LITERARY PILGRIMAGE 123 

front door is through the stable. In this cottage 
Burns grew up, helped his father, who was a cow- 
herder, studied a few books, learned old Scottish 
songs, and, encouraged by his mother and sisters, 
wrote for the country people, and sometimes for 
the country paper, his simple country songs and 
poems. Later on he rented a farm for himself, 
married, secured a government position as excise- 
man, but never succeeded in keeping even with 
the world. In his last sickness he was compelled 
to borrow a small sum in order to take a short 
trip for his health, and died before he could re- 
pay it. For thirty-seven and a half years he 
struggled and battled with poverty and adversity, 
and then at Dumfries died, and there was buried. 
At Ayr still stands the roofless "Kirk Alloway" 
from which sallied forth the witches after Tam 
o'Shanter. Around it is the old church-yard in 
which is buried Burns' father. A one-eyed, one- 
legged, weird-looking old Scotchman, who seems 
as if he had grown up in the church-yard, pointed 
out the old graves, and recited for us Tam 
o'Shanter in such a dramatic manner that we 
almost felt that he must have been with Tam 
upon that memorable night. Not far from the 
old church are, "Ye banks and braes o' bonnie 
Doon," and across it are still the "Auld Brig," 
built about 1250, and the new bridge now over a 
century old. By its side is erected a monument 
to Burns. 



124 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

As one leaves the scenes of Burns' struggles 
and poverty, he admires more the greatness of 
this country poet, v^^ho could write: 

"The rank is' but the guinea's stamp, 
The man 's the gowid for a' that. 

A man 's a man for a' that." 

From Ayr to the English Lake District, from 
the homes of Burns to those of Wordsworth, 
Coleridge, Southey, and Ruskin is not a long 
distance. The Lake District is a fertile, green 
mountainous region interspersed with beautiful 
small lakes. A week's time can be spent delight- 
fully coaching or walking and climbing through 
the district. Much of it retains a rustic sim- 
plicity. 

At the little village of Patterdale the shepherds 
of the surrounding country held, on a Saturday 
afternoon, a shepherd dog contest, in which the 
dogs would go out and gather up the sheep. 
That night the shepherds and the village people 
had a dance which I attended. Many of the 
dances were quaint, and had a vigorous com- 
plex movement. Between dances there were 
not sufficient chairs in the hall for all to sit 
down, so the men sat on the chairs and their 
partners on their knees. They did it without 
the least concern. The crowd was orderly, but 
there was healthy, rustic life, and all danced as 
if they realized Browning's sentiments in Saul : 



LITERARY PILGRIMAGE 125 

"O, the wild joy of living." 

At Grassmere is the quiet, retiring "Dove 
Cottage," the home of Wordsworth, where he 
wrote "Daffodils" and many of his well-known 
poems. He is buried in the nearby church-yard, 
and a very modest headstone marks the resting- 
place of this poet's poet. At Coniston, only a 
few hours' drive, is the home of Ruskin. His 
house and grounds are large and pretentious. 
He sleeps in the village church-yard, and a very 
elaborately-carved stone stands at the head of his 
grave. Other houses are to be seen around these 
lakes that famous authors have occupied for their 
homes. 



CHAPTER X. 

IRISH ODDS AND ENDS. 

IRELAND has about the same area and popula- 
tion as Ohio. Owing to the constant emigra- 
tion to England and the United States, there are 
more Irish out of Ireland than at home. Recently 
there was rejoicing in the Emerald Isle, because 
the census showed but a small annual decrease in 
population. 

Dublin is the ancient capital, and a very 
metropolitan city. It is a well-built, solidly-con- 
structed city, with an attractive appearance. 
Sackville Street, its main thoroughfare, is very 
broad, and is ornamented with statues and mon- 
uments to the memory of Ireland's distinguished 
dead. The two most conspicuous monuments 
are a very tall, round shaft to Lord Nelson, 
Britain's greatest naval fighter, and a very large 
and elaborate group of statuary to Daniel O'Con- 
nell, styled the Irish liberator. 

In Sackville Street and in College Green are 
many statues that are worth noticing. Three 
or four are by Ireland's great sculptor, Foley, who 
carved the statue of the Prince Consort, in the 
Albert Memorial in London, and who is himself 
buried among England's great in Westminster 



IRISH ODDS AND ENDS 127 

Abbey. Among the statues that particularly 
arrest attention are those of Burke, Goldsmith, 
Tom Moore, the poet, Father Murphy, the tem- 
perance advocate, Grattan and Fox, the states- 
men, and Lecky, the historian. They are men 
of whom Dublin may well be proud. 

There are many objects of interest in Dublin. 
Occupying the center of the city, across the street 
from the old Parliament Houses, now the Bank 
of Ireland, is Trinity College. Its grounds em- 
brace probably the most valuable forty-five acres 
in Dublin. It is a venerable institution of learn- 
ing. The library contains some three hundred 
thousand volumes, and among its old manu- 
scripts are some of the most valuable in the 
world. I saw a copy of a part of the Bible that 
dates back to the fifth century. Its most treas- 
ured possession is, however, the Book of Kells, 
being a copy of the New Testament, written and 
illuminated by the monks in the Irish monastery 
at Kells in the twelfth century. Every page is 
a picture, and every letter is a study in the finest 
decorative art. Their colors are not faded, but 
retain most of their original brightness and 
beauty. This permanency is thought to be due 
to the fact that in one of the religious wars the 
Book was thrown into a peat bog, and remained 
there for fifteen years. Peat has a remarkable 
preservative effect, and it has fixed these colors. 
In the college library, too, is the original harp 



128 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

of Erin, which was taken as the model of the 
harp on the Irish coat of arms. 

St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland. 
According to tradition he introduced Christianity, 
and drove out snakes. There have been no 
snakes in Ireland since. Although he lived in 
the fifth century, there are many legends and 
mementoes of him still to be found in Ireland. 
In the Gap of Dunloe, near Killarney, the guide 
pointed out to me the spot where St. Patrick 
killed the last snake. In Dublin there are more 
authentic reminders. In the museum is the altar 
bell which he used in his religious services, and 
which he described in his will. From the elev- 
enth century the history of this old bell is well 
authenticated. That at that early date it was 
believed to have been St. Patrick^s bell, is shown 
by a cover inlaid with worked gold and precious 
stones that was then made for the bell, and which 
cover is exhibited alongside the bell in the 
museum. 

In Dublin, St. Patrick's Cathedral is said to be 
built over the well in which St. Patrick baptized 
his first converts to Christianity. By the irony 
of fate the majestic St. Patrick's Cathedral is 
now an Episcopal Cathedral, having been taken 
from the Catholics at the time of the Reforma- 
tion, while the Catholics have a very plain, unpre- 
tentious structure for their cathedral. The 
famous caustic Dean Swift, author of Gulliver's 




Kissing the Blarney Stone 



IRISH ODDS AND ENDS 129 

Travels, was once dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, 
and he and his Stella are buried near to one 
another beneath its pavements. 

From Dublin I went down to Cork, and out to 
Blarney Castle. Have you kissed the Blarney 
Stone? is the oft-repeated question in Ireland. 

Blarney Castle is an old Norman Castle some 
fourteen miles out from Cork, and built half a 
century before Columbus discovered America. 
It is now a well-preserved ruin. Its lower walls 
are some twelve feet thick, and it is about as tall 
as a ten-story building. Around its square top 
is a projecting parapet about nine feet high, rest- 
ing on heavy stone brackets, and the lowest stone 
of this parapet, between two of these brackets, 
is the famous Blarney Stone. Tradition says that 
whoever kisses this stone will receive that gift 
of gab, or persuasive power of eloquence for 
which the Irish around Cork always have been 
noted. 

To kiss this stone is no easy feat. The old 
way was to be lowered by the heels over the 
outside of the parapet, and thus kiss the stone. 

Now one sits down on the pavement, alongside 
where a stone has been taken out of the floor of 
the projecting part of the parapet, and leans back 
over the cavity, while several persons grab him 
by the legs and lower him about five feet until 
he can get a hold of two iron bars, and then 
draw himself outward and upward and kiss this 



130 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

celebrated stone. I felt considerable satisfaction 
as I was undergoing the exceedingly novel ex- 
perience of viewing the world upside down, sus- 
pended a hundred feet up in the air, in the 
thought that two vigorous sailors from an Eng- 
lish man-of-war were at my heels. I next helped 
to lower one of these sailors, and after we pulled 
him up he thanked me, and said that I had no 
idea what privileges the kissing of that stone 
would give him in every port of the world. He 
evidently intended to scatter the gift of eloquence. 

I asked an Irish girl if she had kissed the 
Blarney Stone, and she quickly retorted, ''Girls 
do not have to kiss it.'' However, American 
girls frequently astonish the natives and foreign- 
ers by doing it. 

The effect of a myth or tradition is remarkable. 
Here is a plain piece of limestone, black and worn 
by the kissing of centuries, simply because in the 
dim past some one said that the kissing would 
give the kisser eloquence, and some one believed 
it. That tradition now supports a railroad built 
to carry the pilgrims from all parts of the world 
who come to kiss the old stone. Most of these 
pilgrims, strange to say, for they need the gift 
the least, are Americans. That same tradition 
has placed this stone with the Kaaba Stone at 
Mecca, and the American Pilgrim Rock, among 
the three most famous stones in the world. 

Ireland is fine, and the Irish are finer. Every- 



IRISH ODDS AND ENDS 131 

thing is green here except the people. They 
may not have a ready shilling, but they always 
have a ready answer. Every man here is every 
man's equal. 

In Ireland every man is cordial. I was the 
sole occupant of a railway compartment going 
from Cork to Bantry when an old Irish fisher- 
man and his wife entered. At once they began 
to talk. The old lady said that she had a sister 
keeping a boarding-house in Boston, and won- 
dered if I knew her. Not happening to know 
her, I asked if she were coming to visit her sister. 
She answered that if ever she did she hoped that 
I would be on the ship, for she thought that I 
would make a fine companion on the voyage for 
her. When they left the train at the end of 
twenty miles they both shook hands with me, 
and the Irishman paused and said that he was 
sorry that the train did not stop long enough for 
me to go down street and take a drink with him. 
Who can help liking a land where there is such 
simple, genuine cordiality and hospitality. 

Killarney is the beauty spot of Ireland. I 
reached it by going from Cork by rail three hours 
to Bantry, and then by coaching over what is 
known as the Prince of Wales route to Killarney. 
It is a two days' drive. Soon after leaving 
Bantry we passed through private estates with 
fuchsia hedges along the road, ten feet high, which 
were in blossom, and presenting an almost solid 



132 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

mass of dark red flowers. The climate by the 
south coast of Ireland, due to the Gulf Stream, is 
almost semi-tropical. The coach passes along 
splendid roads that for a time skirt the sea, 
and then climb over mountain passes, and fin- 
ally follow the shores of the beautiful lakes 
of Killarney. The country in this region is 
sparsely settled, and the small, one-story cabins 
are surrounded by little cultivated patches of 
about six to ten acres. There was more thrift 
and prosperity than I had expected to find. The 
country itself is green, while bright yellow and 
purple wild flowers give color and variety to the 
scene. 

The town of Killarney is not very large; it is 
a delightful summer resort, near the meeting of 
the lakes of Killarney. There are here several 
large and pleasant summer hotels. It is a market- 
town, and the neighboring farmers drive their 
pigs into town on market-day. As they come to 
town on their small carts, drawn by smaller don- 
keys, they present a picturesque scene. 

The industry at Killarney, that most interests 
travelers, is the Irish lace making. Much of it 
is made in the convents. I visited one of the 
convents to see how it was done. Girls and 
women were at work on Irish point and Irish 
crochet. Their wages are small, about twenty- 
five cents a day, and it takes from four to six 
months to make one of the finer collars. 



IRISH ODDS AND ENDS 133 

As I could understand little about lace, I 
started to look in at some of the schoolrooms, 
when I met the Mother Superior. She took me 
through some half a dozen rooms, where healthy- 
looking, bright-eyed girls, answering to the well- 
known American names of Sullivan, Dwyer, and 
Nolan, were sitting on narrow benches, without 
backs, behind narrow desks. On the walls hung 
bright pictures. In one room about thirty little 
tots, from three to five years old, were coyly 
answering the questions of a fourteen-year-old 
kindergarten teacher. 

The Mother Superior asked me if I had seen 
any of the old Irish dances, and as I had not, she 
gathered some dozen girls from twelve to four- 
teen years old in the music room. Here one of 
the nuns played dance music while the girls 
danced the heel and toe dance, the Irish jig, and 
other old and difficult dances. Then some of 
the girls played on the piano and violin and sang 
old Gaelic songs. Music is not a lost art in 
Ireland. 

These Irish children are bright. Many I re- 
member, but one little Irish girl stands out prom- 
inently. Towards evening, one day in Dublin, I 
was wandering slowly back to my hotel, when a 
little flower girl, as they often do, ran up and 
wanted to sell me a rose. Without looking down 
I declined to buy and wandered on, but when I 
stopped a block farther away to look in at a 



134 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

store-window, I was surprised to find this same 
flower girl at my side, persisting that I should 
buy her rose. I then noticed that her rose was a 
very faded, dilapidated-looking flower, so I said 
to her, ''Your rose is so wilted that I could not 
wear it." She looked up at me with a pretty 
smile and replied, "I know it, I have carried it 
all day and nobody will buy it, and I do so want 
a penny for it." Attracted by her frankness, I 
asked, "What would you do with a penny?" She 
replied that she would buy two boxes of matches 
for a penny, and sell them for a penny apiece, 
and thus make a penny. Thinking that such a 
business-like twelve-year-old flower girl should 
have some capital, I reached into my pocket, and 
finding a sixpence, gave it to her for her wilted 
rose. She was surprised into speechlessness, but 
her face beamed her thanks as she darted across 
the street for her home in the slum district. 
Before she rounded the corner she paused, with 
her face all aglow, bowed her parting thanks, and 
disappeared from my view. Her smiles made 
that faded rose cheap at a sixpence. 

The Irish peasants and villagers at Killarney 
are always pleasant and interesting. In an old 
Irishman's curio shop of canes and shillalahs I 
bought a shillalah, and as I handled the ugly- 
looking, black-thorn stick I asked the old Irish- 
man if they were used much now, and he replied, 
''Oh, no, only at election times." Their elections 
must be interesting. 



IRISH ODDS AND ENDS 135 

The Irish coach drivers and boatsmen around 
Killarney point out many interesting spots. 
They show you a little island called the Devil's 
Bit, which they say is the last piece of ground 
owned by his satanic majesty in Ireland, and tell 
you that it is another case of absentee landlord- 
ism, for they understand that the devil has gone 
to Chicago. They also show you the Devil's 
Punch Bowl, containing a bottomless lake, and 
tell you how an Englishman took off his clothes 
and dived in, and finally came out without 
clothes in China. 

There are many beautiful drives about Killar- 
ney, and the two native vehicles are the peasant's 
donkey-cart and the jaunting-car. An enthusi- 
astic friend insisted that I should take a long 
drive on one of these peasant carts with her. 
Accordingly we mounted one of these springless, 
two-wheeled vehicles drawn by a little donkey, 
and, to the amusement of natives and tourists, 
started for a country drive. It takes some art 
to manage one of these little donkeys, and for 
some reason, which we could not discover, but 
which was apparent to all the natives, at first 
we could not make the donkey understand that 
we wanted to go, and next he started off so 
quickly that we suddenly found ourselves in the 
midst of a donkey runaway, with half of the 
population yelling at us, or running to our assis- 
tance. We finally cleared the town and got out 



136 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

onto the country roads where the donkey took 
his time. Before we reached town again I found 
walking much pleasanter than the pounding of 
the rough, springless cart. 

The Irish jaunting-car is a vehicle the phi- 
losophy of which I was never able to solve. It 
is a high, two-wheeled cart with the driver on 
the front seat, and back of it, separated by a wide 
partition, are two seats looking away from one 
another, each large enough to hold two persons. 
If a couple take a ride, each must sit in these 
opposite seats with faces in the opposite direc- 
tion. If you half turn and try to talk you are 
separated by this wide partition over the middle 
of the cart, and run the risk of being tossed off 
at every jolt. While riding in the jaunting-car 
is interesting as a curious means of transporta- 
tion, yet I could never understand why the com- 
pany-loving Irish should ever have invented such 
an unsociable vehicle. 

One always feels a regret at the thought of 
leaving Ireland. The country is so green and 
attractive, and the people are all so cordial, good- 
natured, warm-hearted, and intense that before 
I knew it I found myself entering into their 
thoughts and feelings, and almost ready to take 
up their quarrels and fights. We were all ready 
to shout, "Erin go bras.'* 



fit? 




Water Carrier and Pigskin Water Bottle 



CHAPTER XL 

A MOORISH CITY. 

BARBARISM and civilization, Moslemism and 
Christianity are separated by the same nar- 
row straits of Gibraltar that divide Africa from 
Europe and Morocco from Spain. It is but a 
few hours' ride from Gibraltar across the straits 
to Tangiers, but the transition is as great as from 
day to night. Tangiers is a barbarous, Oriental, 
Moslem city, that stands as a defiant out-post of 
the dark ages on the edge of modern civilization. 
Tangiers is located on the northwest corner 
of Africa, and it is the seaport and diplomatic 
capital of Morocco. With its fine harbor it oc- 
cupies a strategic position in the line of trade be- 
tween Europe and Africa. Morocco is rich in 
undeveloped agricultural and mineral resources, 
but this great country possesses no railroads, 
wagon roads, or postal system of its own, and 
still preserves in the twentieth century its slave 
markets and slaves. Life and property in this 
country are so unsafe that no one can travel to 
its capital, Fez, one hundred and twenty-five 
miles inland, without an armed escort. When the 
waves of civilization roll over Morocco, as soon 



138 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

they must, Tangiers will become one of the im- 
portant cities of the world. 

Now Tangiers is one of the most unique, Orien- 
tal, picturesque cities that a traveler can dis- 
cover. It is a walled city of twenty thousand 
inhabitants, built on a hillside. Its flat-roofed 
houses of plastered brick, tinted white and va- 
rious shades of blue, rise in terraces, with here 
and there projecting mosque towers and minarets 
of yellow and green tile. The color effect is 
striking. 

Ships do not come up to the long, modern pier, 
but they anchor in the harbor, and one is landed 
amid clamorous Moors in small boats. Through 
a narrow tower gate in the walls by the pier 
crowds all the sea traffic of the northwest corner 
of Africa. At the gate is a motley, noisy jam of 
people and animals struggling to get in or out. 
There are no vehicles, but there are donkeys, 
mules, horses, camels, and cattle. Herds of cattle 
are being driven through and out into the sea 
where a rope is fastened around their horns, and, 
struggling, they are hoisted by derricks over the 
sides of the ships. Finally, the incoming traveler 
wedges his way among people and animals, and 
gets through this crowded gate into the city. I 
know of no city gate in Peking, China, that is as 
crowded or more interesting. 

Street life in Tangiers is entertaining. The 
streets are narrow. The irregular main street 



A MOORISH CITY 139 

is not over twenty-five feet wide, while many of 
the thoroughfares are hardly ten feet across. 
These streets are often packed and jammed with 
caravans with all kinds of burdens, for every- 
thing is transported on the backs of animals. 
Frequently, so broad are the loads and so narrow 
the streets that traffic is congested by two of 
these burden bearers being stalled in an effort to 
pass. Then the streets resound with the strange 
oaths of the drivers. 

The street life is noisy. The Moors have good 
lungs, and they exercise them constantly. They 
talk, and shout, and quarrel at their animals as 
they work. Then street venders cry their wares, 
while lithe Ethiopian water sellers run here and 
there ringing their bells and selling cups of 
drinking-water from hairy pigskin bottles to lazy 
Moors who sit or lie along the edges of the streets 
in constant danger of being tramped upon. 
Somehow I could not summon courage sufficient 
to drink water from one of these greasy, pigskin 
bottles, but I was told that the water was per- 
fumed or sweet-scented. 

The fat and swarthy Moors are picturesque. 
They wear long, loosely-flowing, hooded robes 
that reach to their knees. These robes are usu- 
ally white, although the poorer laborers wear 
yellow bagging. Their lower legs are generally 
bare, and upon their feet are worn sandals with 
heel flaps down, so as to be easily removed. Their 



140 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

head-dress is the red fez with black tassel, and 
below the fez is the w^hite turban. Their cos- 
tumes contrast with their complexions, which 
range from the darkness of the Spanish brunette 
to the blackness of the Ethiopian. Many of these 
Moors ride their Arab steeds well, and in the 
evenings towards sunset, as I saw groups of them 
galloping across the neighboring sands with their 
robes flying in the breezes, I thought that I was 
beholding one of my old geography pictures 
coming to life. 

The women are seldom seen upon the streets. 
They have also long white robes with hoods 
which they draw closely over their heads when 
a man approaches, while about the lower part 
of their faces they wear white cloths so that little 
of the face can be seen. As about dusk they 
stalk silently along, in their whiteness, they sug- 
gest ghosts. I remember the first group I met 
in the twilight in a narrow street. As they saw 
me approach they half startled me by stopping, 
extending wide their arms and flapping their 
robes in gathering their hoods over their heads 
and faces. They then turned and stood with 
their faces to the wall until I passed. There was 
a spookiness about it all. 

The residence streets are lined with solid blank 
walls, pierced by heavy solid doors, and with here 
and there in the upper story a very small window. 
The houses are built around central courts 



A MOORISH CITY 141 

covered with a skylight to insure privacy to the 
women. The light and air come through this 
court, which oftentimes is ornamented with 
flowers and fountains. Frequently the outer 
walls project almost a story above the flat roof 
of the house, so that there is an open story on 
top of the house to which the Moors repair at 
sunset to enjoy the evening breezes. As from 
my higher hotel windows I looked down upon 
these evening home rooms, it made a very at- 
tractive scene. 

When I wandered through the business streets 
lined with small, open shops, hardly larger than 
prison cells, of which the principal content 
seemed to be the broad and swarthy Moor, who 
sits on a mat cross-legged, I wondered if they 
ever did any business, for their shops were al- 
ways empty. In the broad market-place, how- 
ever, there was the usual Oriental confusion. 
Meats, vegetables, and all sorts of articles were 
being sold. Here, too, were the Oriental story- 
tellers holding intent their listeners, while crowds 
were gathered around the jugglers and snake- 
charmers. 

Tangiers is a Mohammedan city. One is never 
permitted to forget it. From the minarets of the 
mosques the muezzins at certain hours call the 
faithful to prayer. The first morning that I was 
in Tangiers I was awakened with a start by such 
a trumpet-like call in my ears to Allah, that I 



142 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

thought that the muezzin must have gotten into 
my room. Then I discovered that the minaret 
of the great mosque was not far from my window, 
and that the muezzin on this mosque started the 
cry, which was taken up from minaret to minaret 
by the muezzins on all the mosques of the city, 
until the whole city echoed and reechoed, and the 
faithful were all awakened. At twilight, too, as 
the faithful in their white robes, in response to the 
call, would glide along the narrow streets in soft 
sandals and slip silently into the mosques, there 
seemed a peculiar weirdness about it all. 

Tangiers is fiercely Moslem, too. No Chris- 
tian dare enter their mosques as he can in Con- 
stantinople. Once I was walking down a nar- 
row street when some wild steers started to 
make a rush toward me. I quickly jumped upon 
a low step, when almost instantly a Moor ordered 
me off, for he said it was a mosque step, and no 
Christian must defile it. 

One day a party of us were riding about the 
city on mules, and we stopped at a suburban inn 
for lunch, and after we had fed our muleteers 
they were half reclining on an embankment in a 
rollicking mood. They were so picturesque that 
some wanted their pictures, but when the cam- 
eras were brought out they quickly rolled over, 
threw their robes over their faces, and protested. 
rWe did not care to persist and provoke them, 
for at the time there were three European men- 



A MOORISH CITY 143 

of-war in the harbor loaded with marines ready 
to quell a riot and insurrection, and, just before, 
my guide had told me confidentially that in a 
month's time the Moors were going to rise and 
drive out all the Europeans, but would not hurt 
the Americans. The knives at their hilts were 
not very reassuring of peaceful intentions, and 
the question was. Would they stop to distinguish 
between Europeans and Americans? 

Walking down one of the streets I heard a very 
peculiar noise coming from an upstairs window. 
I stopped and looked in, and saw about forty 
boys sitting cross-legged on the floor, swaying 
back and forth, repeating something in concert in 
Arabic, while upon a little raised platform, in the 
same posture, was a man doing likewise. My 
guide explained to me that it was a boys' school. 
When I wanted to know if I could not visit the 
school, he said that I could not for it was in a 
part of a mosque, and so no Christian could enter. 
The boys were then learning a lesson from the 
Koran. 

Not far from the harem, which men are not 
permitted to visit, I came upon a Moorish court. 
It was in session in an open loggia of a large 
building. In one corner upon a mat sat cross- 
legged the judge, who had kicked ofif his sandals 
and was in his bare feet. He had a dignified air, 
and a grave and thoughtful countenance. There 
were seemingly no lawyers. The litigants got 



144 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

down on their knees in front of the judge, and 
before t'hey began their case they kissed the 
judge's bare feet. The parties to the suits were 
noisy and talkative, while the judge was silent, 
attentive, and reserved. Finally, with a wave of 
his hand, he would render his decision. 

As I was starting to leave the court a Moorish 
girl of about twenty came rushing after me, and 
poured upon me a deluge of Arabic. Surprised, 
I asked my guide what she meant. He explained 
that she was begging me to go and plead with 
the pasha in her behalf. With a lawyer's in- 
stinct for a case, and with a lawyer's readiness 
to help any girl in trouble, even with no fee in 
sight, I was yet a little perplexed about taking 
the case on account of the necessary ceremony of 
kissing the judge's bare feet. However, I told 
my guide to get the facts. As she told them 
there was an abundance of tears, and in her ex- 
citement she threw back her hood and lowered 
the veil around her face, so that I saw a specimen 
of Moorish beauty. She had a bright eye, not- 
withstanding all her tears, and a pretty face. 
The facts were that she had had a fight with a 
man, that he had hurt (her, and that she wanted 
me to ask the Pasha to put the man in jail. 
Across the street was the crowded jail, through 
the bars of which the wretched prisoners were 
begging pittances of passersby in order to buy 
food from their jailer. Not caring to help her 



A MOORISH CITY 145 

put the man in such a prison, I declined to take 
her case. She was disconsolate as I walked 
away. Later in the day, when I was over in the 
market-place watching the snake-charmers, she 
came rushing down on me all smiles. She said 
that she had been to the British legation, and 
there they told her to return in the morning. 
Then I suspected that on account of the white 
linen suit and white cork helmet that I was wear- 
ing, that she had mistaken me for a foreign 
official. Soon the judge rode through the market 
on his white mule, and the people rushed up and 
kissed his garment. As the judge and the client 
disappeared in the crowd, I was glad that I 
was not practicing law in a Moorish Court. 



CHAPTER XIT. 

SEVILLE. 

FROM Tangier, Morocco, to Cadiz, Spain, is 
a choppy sea-ride of six hours. A poor sailor, 
though, is compensated amply by the surprising 
sea-view of Cadiz. 

Cadiz is a white city. It stands out in the 
sea on a low, projecting rock, and is connected 
with the mainland by a neck so narrow that one 
can almost throw across it. Before its sea front 
there are dangerous hidden rocks, so the view of 
the blue waves dashing against its white walls is 
not obscured by any shipping. The result is 
the picture of a great white city resting on the 
blue waves. It made me think of a delicately- 
carved alabaster casket, with the towering white 
cathedral as the central figure, standing on an 
embossed cloth of blue. 

Cadiz is an appropriate entrance to Spain for 
an American, for from the neighboring deserted 
port of Palos sailed Columbus on his voyage of 
discovery to America, while he returned to Cadiz 
itself. To Cadiz he was brought home on his 
third voyage a prisoner in chains. 

From Cadiz to Seville is a ride of a hundred 
miles, either by river or train, through a country 



SEVILLE 147 

partly fertile and partly made up of salt marshes. 
On the road is Jerez, a town of sixty thousand 
inhabitants from which is derived the word 
"Sherry," and at which is made the famous 
sherry wine. The great wine houses and ware- 
houses can be seen from the train. 

Seville is a prosperous commercial city, with a 
population of one hundred and fifty thousand 
people crowded into a small area. Its history 
covers twenty-five centuries. In Roman days 
it was the birthplace of the Senecas, and a fa- 
vorite city of Julius Caesar. In Moorish times it 
was a magnificent capital. When captured by 
the Christians more than three hundred thousand 
Moors were expelled. In Spanish days, Colum- 
bus brought his ships and trophies here on his 
return from America. On a Palm Sunday, in 
the great cathedral, Columbus was welcomed 
publicly, and to the same great cathedral his 
remains were brought by the Spaniards at the 
close of the recent Spanish-American war after 
theyl had reposed for centuries in Haiti and 
Havana. Near the same cathedral is now the 
Columbus Library, collected by his son, and con- 
taining, as its chief treasure, "A Treatise on the 
Biblical Indications of the New World," written 
by Columbus while in prison to avert receiving 
from the inquisition the crown of martyrdom for 
having presented Spain with a new world. 

Seville is an open-air, pleasure-loving city. 



148 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

The people take life leisurely, opening their shops 
and offices late, closing them for a long noon-day 
siesta, and finally quitting work early in the 
evening. The principal street is the Calle de 
Sierpes, a narrow, crowded street on which no 
vehicles are allowed. In summer it is protected 
from the sun by awnings stretched from the 
opposite roofs. It is lined with the leading 
shops, cafes, and clubs. The shop windows, with 
their lace mantillas, bright fans, and candied 
fruits, are very tempting. 

The shopkeepers are polite and agreeable. In 
one of these little stores I was attracted by the 
delicacy of Spanish politeness. Just about clos- 
ing time I stepped into a shop and bought about 
twenty dollars' worth of fans, and when I went 
to pay for them I was surprised to find that I 
had left my money in another coat at the hotel. 
As neither the shopkeeper nor myself could 
speak the other's language, by a series of ges- 
tures I made known my predicament and 
offered to leave the fans and return in the morn- 
ing with the money for them. As soon as he 
grasped my meaning, with the most stately bows, 
he insisted that I should take the fans with me. 

The home life of Seville is also largely an 
open-air one. The dwellings center around open 
courts, called "patios," which are usually paved 
with marble, and surrounded by marble colon- 
nades. Frequently cooling fountains play in the 



SEVILLE 149 

center, while the orange and pomegranate furnish 
shade, and flowers, bright-plumaged birds, and 
Oriental rugs and divans give color and luxury 
to the scene. The centering of the houses upon 
the patio lends to the semi-Oriental seclusion of 
Spanish life. The Spaniards are home-lovers, 
and the Spanish women usually lead a secluded 
home life. 

I was interested in the criticism of American 
girls by a bright Spanis'h girl who had seen 
diplomatic life in Washington. She said that 
the peculiarity of American girls seemed to be 
their constant desire to get away from home, to 
go off to college, to Europe, to balls and theaters, 
to go any place to get away from home, while a 
Spanish girl wanted to be at home, unless she 
went away with her family. 

Another feature of the Spanish house that 
leads to open-air life is the heavily-barred street 
windows of the homes, which make a residence 
street look like a street of jails. The only prac- 
tical use to which I ever saw these bars put 
was in the separation of youthful lovers. The 
Spanish cavalier is not received in the parlor 
by his dark-eyed enchantress, but, with a guitar 
in hand, he leans up against the iron grating of 
the parlor window in the dusk of the evening, 
and plays and sings low, soft melodies, or whis- 
pers honeyed words to the velvet-eyed brunette 
within. To the colder American there is a touch 



ISO OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

of the comical in this love-making, but the 
Spanish ardor does not seem to be cooled by 
iron bars. 

This open-air courting furnishes much neigh- 
borhood gossip. In the street on which I was 
stopping there was an interesting courtship in 
progress between the only heirs of two wealthy 
families. The parents of both desired their 
marriage. At first the youth was ardent, and the 
maiden was cool. Then the youth, having his 
mind diverted by thoughts of voice culture in 
Paris, grew indifferent, while the maiden became 
coy, and all the parents insistent. Every morn- 
ing we were informed at breakfast whether Al- 
phonso had leaned for two or three hours the 
evening before against Teresa's windows, and 
then there was a general discussion of the indi- 
cations of the probable ending. We soon all 
became as much interested in the courtship as if 
we were the principals ourselves. I left before 
the romance ended, so I have never known 
whether the gallant don married the beautiful 
signorita, or whether he went to Paris and forgot 
his neighbor. As all the world loves a lover, so 
all Spain delights in these open-air love affairs. 

Seville is also an art-loving and a religious 
city. The chief treasures of Seville are the 
paintings of Murillo and the great cathedral. 
Seville was the birthplace of both Velasquez and 
Murillo, the two greatest Spanish painters, but 



SEVILLE 151 

it possesses only one painting by Velasquez, 
while it is rich in the finest collection in the world 
of Murillo's. 

Murillo was a deeply religious man, his son 
becoming a priest, and his daughter a nun, and 
his paintings were mostly of religious subjects 
for religious orders. His religious paintings, 
though, with realistic touch portrayed Sevillian 
life. There was no pretense of representing the 
life of Palestine. His models, background, and 
atmosphere were of the Seville he loved. To his 
Madonnas and Immaculate Conceptions he gave 
an Andalusian setting. They have the semi- 
Oriental brightness of coloring, the richness and 
happiness of life, and the fullness and beauty of 
form and figure that distinguish Seville. His 
children were Sevillian. The infants, Jesus 
and John, and the nimbus of angel children that 
beautify his paintings, are but portraits of the 
remarkably bright-eyed, fine-looking little fellows 
of Seville. Because Murillo, in his religious 
paintings, with the genius of a master, put on 
canvas this most delightful life of Seville, his 
paintings are among the most pleasing that can 
be found in any of the world's galleries. For the 
same reason they have been largely kept in 
Seville. 

The Sevillians are a highly religious people. 
The loftiest material expression of the religious 
feelings of the Spaniards has been given in the 



152 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

great cathedral of Seville. Some four centuries 
ago a chapter of poor monks in Seville resolved, 
"So to build a cathedral that all posterity shall 
call us madmen/' and they builded the second 
largest cathedral in the world. In some ways 
it is the most impressive, awe-inspiring religious 
structure in the world. The exterior is a great 
mass of masonry, with turrets, towers, pinnacles, 
buttresses, and flying buttresses, all huge, but so 
symmetrical as to give but little suggestion of the 
immensity of the interior. 

The interior is wonderful. In the subdued 
light, amid the shadows from the over-reaching 
arches, as I looked down through the long aisles 
and up into the vaulted heights, it seemed almost 
as if I were peering into infinity itself. 

As figures do not readily convey definite ideas 
I shall describe the cathedral by comparison. 
Take an ordinary city church and lengthen it so 
that it would be a block long, and widen it so 
that, with connecting chapels, it would be a block 
wide, heighten the ceiling so that beneath the 
main aisle could be placed a large church with 
its tall spires ; support its great roof upon grace- 
ful marble columns, yet so large that the ex- 
tended arms of eight persons would be required 
to reach around ; lighten it through lofty stained 
glass windows of such richness that they glisten 
like beautiful gems as the setting sun shines 
through them ; ornament it with carvings in mar- 



SEVILLE 153 

ble and wood; enrich it with shrines and altars 
of silver and gold and costliest marbles; beautify 
it with sculptures and paintings of the greatest 
artists, including masterpieces of Murillo; equip 
it with sixty priests; make it musical with the 
harmonies of five great pipe-organs ; and dignify 
it with a graceful tower with walls ten feet thick 
of solid masonry, and reaching as high toward 
heaven as a twenty-eight-story sky-scraper. 
Then nationalize it with memories of Te Deums 
for victories won and new worlds discovered; 
solemnize it with memories of services for de- 
feats and losses sustained; sanctify it with the 
bones of priests and saints; glorify it with the 
tombs and bodies of kings and queens, and the 
nation's great, including the remains of the 
world's greatest discoverer, Columbus; then 
mellow it all through the softening touches of 
four centuries, and harmonize it in all its parts 
through the master genius of some great archi- 
tect, so that whoever walks beneath its lofty 
vaulted aisles feels the solemn sublimity of the 
great structure, and realizes that he is in one of 
those great worshiping places that belongs to no 
church and to no religion, but to all churches 
and to all religions, a temple that exalts man and 
glorifies God. 

Such is the Cathedral of Seville. Such, too, is 
the chief treasure of Seville. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

A BULL FIGHT. 

Bull-fights and Spain are associated ideas. For 
centuries, in all parts of the world, bull-fights 
have been the peculiar Spanish spectacle and 
amusement. In some three hundred rings, scat- 
tered throughout Spain, these fights are held 
every Sunday afternoon from Easter to Novem- 
ber. 

The best fights are at Seville, for the fiercest 
bulls and the bravest fighters come from the prov- 
ince of Andalusia, of which Seville is the capital. 
In Seville, for the purpose, there is a great, three- 
story, circular stone building surrounding a ring 
about two hundred feet in diameter. This great 
building will seat ten thousand people. The 
seats range in price from fifteen cents to two 
dollars and a half, those in the shade costing 
twice as much as similar ones in the sun. 

The fight begins at four-thirty and lasts about 
two hours. Six bulls are killed. Once when I 
entered a little before four-thirty, the great build- 
ing was packed, so that standing-room was at a 
premium. While waiting for the fight I sur- 
veyed the audience. It was composed of men 
and women, young and old, rich and poor. 



J 



A BULL FIGHT 155 

Mothers had carried their babes, grandmothers 
had hobbled on their canes, while parents had 
brought their young sons and daughters, all out 
to see, as it were, a family matinee. It was, too, 
a bright and gay looking audience. The younger 
women wore white mantillas and carried bright 
parasols, while both men and women waved gor- 
geous fans. It was also a happy, good-natured, 
fanning, perspiring audience. 

Suddenly there came the beat of drums, the 
blare of trumpets, and the grand entree. Head- 
ing the procession were officers on spirited steeds, 
followed by bull-fighters and attendants on foot, 
and picadors, with long poles, on jaded horses, 
all dressed in the brilliant costumes of the middle 
ages, while at the end came two harnessed teams 
with three mules each, loud with tinkling bells. 
These teams are to be used for dragging out dead 
bulls and dead horses. While the band played 
loudly the procession crossed the ring and saluted 
the government official in his tribunal, for dignity 
is given to such occasions by an official presiding 
over the ceremonies. The venerable white-haired 
official, after a grave salute, tossed to the marshal 
the key to the bull-pen. Then the procession 
retired, except those who were to meet the first 
bull, who took their positions. When the ring 
was ready the marshal delivered his key to an 
attendant to open the door of the dark pen in 
which the bull had been kept for four or five 



156 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

hours, and then he galloped rapidly out of the 
ring. 

The gate of the pen flew open, and after a few- 
seconds' suspense out cantered a great, magnifi- 
cent yellow bull. As he came forward with 
head down and tail twisting and curling over 
his back, scenting danger, yet confident of his 
strength and power, for hitherto he had never 
met an equal, I could not help feeling for him 
admiration, and then pity at the thought that, 
after half an hour of cruel torment, this magnifi- 
cent animal would be but cold, coarse meat. 

With the entry of the bull the three-act tragedy 
begins; tragedy certainly for the bull, probably 
for the horses, and possibly for the men. 

The first act consists of the receiving of the 
charges of the bull by the picadors, mounted on 
jaded, blind-folded horses. In the center of the 
ring the bull paused, when the picador advanced, 
shaking his pole at the bull. Then the bull 
lowered his head, plunged at the horse's chest, 
and in a minute horse and man were thrown into 
the air, and then they fell heavily to the ground. 
Instantly assistants shake bright robes in the 
bull's eye, and he turns and gives them chase, 
almost goring them as they leap the five-foot 
fence that surrounds the ring. In the meantime 
others have run to help the fallen man and horse. 
The man is pulled out, with his shoulder broken, 
and retires. The horse, crippled, is jerked to its 



i 



A BULL FIGHT 157 

feet and led out to be kilkd. Thus exit the first 
man and horse. Another picador now advances. 
The infuriated bull makes a terrific lunge and 
up go horse and rider, and by some mishap they 
fall with the rider's head toward the bull. In- 
stantly the great audience is on its feet in hushed 
expectancy. In the dust there is an indistin- 
guishable mass of horse, man, and goring bull. 
Dexterous assistants throw bright mantles over 
the bull's face, and again he turns and chases 
them. Then the rider is pulled out uninjured. 
The audience cheers. The horse cannot stand, 
so with the sharp thrust of the cold steel his 
misery is ended. The audience scarcely notices 
it, but the bull returns several times to gore his 
carcass. The first act now ends. The excitable 
Spanish audience, by its cheers, shows its pleas- 
ure, while I have to seek the fresh air. 

Soon the government official gives the signal 
for the second act. In consists in planting half 
a dozen barbed darts about two feet long, bright 
with colored tissue-paper, in the neck of the bull 
to infuriate him. The banderillero stands some 
twenty feet in front of the bull with a dart in 
either hand, and looking him in the eye, dares 
him to come on. The bull takes the dare and 
makes a rush. As he almost strikes, the man 
quickly jumps aside, and drives a dart in each 
side of the bull's neck as he plunges by. A mis- 
step means death. Some half a dozen of these 



158 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

barbed darts are driven into the bull's neck, 
causing the blood to run down his side and irri- 
tating him to a fury. This great yellow bull, 
with six of these in his neck, stood in the center 
of the ring, and with terrific writhing tried to 
shake them loose, and at his impotence pawed the 
ground in rage. 

Then the signal was given for the third act. 
A celebrated espada, or bull-killer, with his keen 
sword, and with a bright red rag, and with his 
hair fixed in a little pig-tail, after their style, 
entered the ring amid tremendous applause. 
These men become famous among the people, 
and their pictures are to be seen in shop-windows 
and on postal cards. One has recently retired to 
enter the Spanish Parliament. As their business 
is dangerous, they receive large compensation, 
one receiving in a single year sixty thousand 
dollars, or more than the President of the United 
States. 

This espada advances towards the bull and 
teases him with his red cloth, but avoids his 
charges. When opportunity offers he steps out 
of the bull's path and tries to pierce him as he 
dashes by. The first attempt was a failure, and 
the sword flew from his hand into the air. The 
second time the bull passed near him, he quickly 
avoided his horns, and through his neck drove the 
sword deep and true to his heart. The big bull 
tottered, writhed, spurted blood from mouth and 



A BULL FIGHT 159 

nostrils, and fell dead. The audience arose in 
wild applause, children waving their handker- 
chiefs, women their parasols, and men tossing 
their hats into the air and ring. The espada, 
with the stately step of an actor, bowed his ac- 
knowledgments as he walked out of the ring. 
The two teams of mules with their tinkling bells 
came hastily in and dragged out the dead horse 
and the dead bull. The bull was taken to the 
butcher's for meat. The arena was then sanded 
for the next bull. Six times that Sunday after- 
noon the same three-act tragedy was repeated as 
a pleasant, after-church family matinee for the 
emotional Spaniards. I did not remain. I has- 
tened out and walked for miles through the beau- 
tiful parks and along the quiet banks of the 
Guadalquiver trying to compose my nerves. The 
horror of the bull-fight long haunted me, so that 
the sign Plaza de Toros on the street-cars almost 
sickened me. Yet it is the great national spec- 
tacle, and no one should visit Spain without wit- 
nessing a bull-fight. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE ALHAMBRA. 

FOR seven centuries the Moors ruled in south- 
ern Spain. They have left as their archi- 
tectural wonders, the Alcazar, or old palace of 
the Moorish kings in Seville, which later Spanish 
kings have greatly remodeled ; the Giralda tower 
in Seville, of which the Madison Square Garden 
tower in New York City is a copy; and the 
Mosque at Cordova, and the Alhambra at 
Granada. 

The Mosque of Cordova is the second in size 
in the world, being exceeded only by the one at 
Mecca. It alone is left in Cordova to suggest 
the magnificence of this city when it was the 
western seat of Arabic power and learning. 

The old mosque is one of the architectural 
surprises of the world. It was two centuries in 
building, and is over a thousand years old. Its 
exterior is disappointing. It is a low, flat struc- 
ture, more than a block long and a block wide, 
surrounded by a wall of thick masonry. 

The interior is an astonishment and a bewilder- 
ment. More than eight hundred and fifty pol- 
ished columns of jasper, porphyry, and alabaster 
of various tints and colors support double, inter- 




The Mosque of Cordova 



THE ALHAMBRA 161 

lacing horseshoe arches, on which rests the roof. 
In the subdued light it looks like a vast forest of 
marble trunks and over-spreading branches. 
There are nineteen long aisles of these columns. 
Figures give no idea of the effect. They rather 
tend to make seem definite and certain what is 
here so impressive because of its vagueness and 
uncertainty. 

At Granada is the Alhambra. Washington 
Irving so artistically described this great old 
Moorish fortress and palace, and wove so beauti- 
fully stories of romance about its deserted courts, 
crumbling walls, and ruined towers that his 
book, in translations, has been read by all peo- 
ples, and in their fancy the Alhambra is the 
world's center of enchantment and romance. 
Since Washington Irving, no traveler has ever 
attempted to give more than a matter-of-fact 
description of the Alhambra. 

The Alhambra occupies the top of a hill which 
rises almost perpendicularly about four hundred 
feet above the city of Granada. Here high para- 
peted walls enclose a tract of ground about two 
blocks wide and four blocks long. Within these 
walls are palaces, fortress, and homes of retain- 
ers. Forty thousand Moorish troops were once 
gathered within them. 

The approach from Granada is by winding 
roads through one of the most beautiful forests 
of elms in the world, and past the large hotel, 



162 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

Washington Irving, which nestles under the vine- 
covered walls of the Alhambra. The principal 
entrance is through the Gate of Judgment, a 
solid, massive tower gateway, built in 1448, with 
heavy wooden doors covered with iron to resist 
assault. It was called the "Gate of Justice" or 
"Gate of the Law," because after the Oriental 
custom, as still can be seen at Tangiers, judges 
sat in the gate and administered justice. 

Passing through the gate one enters a small 
park with trimmed myrtle hedges and a little 
booth for selling water. Beneath the park is a 
large old Moorish cistern, to which water-carriers 
from Granada come with their cans. 

At one end of the park is the old fortress, and 
at the other the royal palace. The exterior of 
the palace shows only blank walls two stories 
high. Within are a group of buildings con- 
structed around open courts. Here is the beauti- 
ful Court of Myrtles with a large pool in the 
center, and at one end the Hall of Ambas- 
sadors, the finest old Moorish hall in existence. 
It is about forty feet square by sixty feet high. 
Its walls are covered with elaborate Moorish 
stucco, or plaster tracery, that looks like carved 
ivory. The floors are of tile, and the hall is 
wainscoted with bright tile, while the ceiling is 
domed, made of wood, and carved like bee cells 
or stalactites. The windows and doors have 
beautiful horseshoe arches. 



THE ALHAMBRA 163 

Across the Court of Myrtles is the entrance to 
the Court of Lions. In the center is a graceful 
marble fountain, supported on the backs of 
twelve marble lions, while around the court is an 
arcade with its walls covered with plaster tracery, 
and its roof supported by over a hundred deli- 
cately-carved marble columns. It is the personi- 
fication of grace and beauty. Adjoining are the 
beautiful apartments of the sultana and harem, 
while down beneath there is an elaborate system 
of marble baths and marble alcoves on which 
reclined readers who read romances to the 
bathers. 

Near the royal palace of the Moors towers the 
great, uncompleted circular palace of the Em- 
peror, Charles V., which looks like the ruins of 
a Roman colosseum, and mars the Oriental 
beauty of the Alhambra. 

Cold and matter of fact is this description of 
this palace of beauty and enchantment. Silent, 
too, seems the palace, and one looks now and 
then expectantly along the porticoes for a white- 
robed, swarthy Moor, and then stealthily glances 
up at a latticed window to catch a glimpse of a 
smile from some dark-eyed beauty, but he looks 
in vain. 

From the highest tower of the old fortress, 
which is now dismantled, there is a very pictur- 
esque view. Below is Granada with less than a 
hundred thousand inhabitants, but which had, 



164 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

when captured from the Moors, more than half 
a million. Far beyond the out-skirts of the 
present city still stand the massive walls of old 
Moorish Granada. Across the city is the rich 
and fertile valley of the Darro, which seems like 
an oasis in the desert of sandy Spain. This val- 
ley was known as the Vega, and for centuries 
here contended many a Saracen and Christian 
knight in tournament, while from this same 
tower Moorish ladies applauded valiant deeds. 
In the distance is the mountain from which 
Boabdil, the last king of the Moors, viewed for 
the last time Granada. To this day it is called 
"The Last Look of the Moor." Tradition says 
that here he paused, and that as he turned and 
gazed at his lost capital and the Alhambra, tears 
came into his eyes, but his spirited mother up- 
braided him, saying, "Weep not like a woman, 
for what you could not defend like a man." 
Over and above this mountain, as a background 
to the scene, rise the lofty Sierra Nevadas with 
their perpetual snow-covered summits. 

From the tower, too, one sees on the opposite 
hillside long rows of small white-washed caves 
cut into the rock and occupied by Spanish gyp- 
sies. For a small fee these strange, graceful 
people will don their bright colored costumes and 
sing wild songs, and dance to the strains of the 
Castanet, guitar, and tambourine, fantastic Orien- 
tal dances. They alone, in Granada, remain of 



i 



THE ALHAMBRA 165 

the peoples of the Orient. The remnant of the 
Moors, some half million in number, were all 
expelled from Spain by Phillip III. about a cen- 
tury after Ferdinand and Isabella captured the 
Alhambra. 

From the tower, also, one looks down upon the 
old cathedral where quietly sleep Ferdinand and 
Isabella, who, in the same year that they sent 
Columbus forth to discover a new world, drove 
forever Moorish romance and enchantment from 
this old Alhambra. 

No one ever leaves Granada without visiting 
their graves. There are certain graves in the 
world that have become shrines for lovers. In 
the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, in Paris, the graves 
of Abelard and Heloise, who have been dead for 
centuries, are still kept covered with fresh bou- 
quets thrown upon them by disappointed lovers. 
The graves of Dean Swift and Stella in St. Pat- 
rick's Cathedral, in Dublin, always draw a pass- 
ing tribute ; while no lover ever comes upon the 
distant graves of Elizabeth and Robert Brown- 
ing, the one in the quiet English cemetery in 
Florence, and the other in Westminster Abbey in 
London, without feeling shocked that these 
romantic elopers and ardent lovers should be 
separated so far in death. Likewise, lovers, and 
lovers of the romantic make pilgrimage to the 
graves of Ferdinand and Isabella in the Royal 



166 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

Chapel of the great memorial cathedral at 
Granada. 

More romance, more hair-breadth escapes, more 
overcoming of obstacles were crowded into the 
youthful lives of Ferdinand and Isabella than into 
those of any hero or heroine of drama or fiction. 
Both were born of royal parents, yet neither was 
born as heir apparent to the throne. Both had 
brothers to stand between them and the throne, 
yet both succeeded to their thrones through war, 
blood-shed, and death of brothers. 

When it became probable that Isabella w^ould 
become queen she was overburdened with suitors. 
At fourteen the much older King of Portugal 
wanted to marry her, but when she saw him she 
absolutely refused. Then her brother selected 
for her husband a powerful Spanish nobleman 
whom she detested, but whom, despite her tears 
and protests, she was ordered to marry. He was 
on his way to the wedding with a large retinue, 
when he suddenly sickened and died. She was 
then betrothed to Carlos, the elder brother of 
Ferdinand, but Carlos, after many disagreements 
with his father, old King John, suddenly died. 
Many whispered "poison." Now the suitors were 
legion. Most of them she had never seen. 
Isabella was now eighteen and had grown pru- 
dent. She sent her chaplain to the various 
courts to view her suitors. He returned and 
reported in favor of Ferdinand. She determined 



THE ALHAMBRA 167 

to marry him. Her brother, the king, decided 
that she should marry the King of Portugal, and 
sent troops to capture her and lock her in prison 
until she should marry the old king. Fore- 
warned, she notified her good friend, the Arch- 
bishop of Toledo, who quickly came with soldiers 
and took her north. She now sent word to Fer- 
dinand to hasten and marry her, although they 
had never seen one another. 

When Ferdinand received the message, he and 
his father, old King John, were delighted, but 
perplexed, for there was a great rebellion in prog- 
ress in King John's country, and his treasury 
was empty, so that he neither had troops with 
which safely to escort Ferdinand to the frontier, 
nor money with which to pay the wedding ex- 
penses. They called a council of state, and it 
was decided that Ferdinand, with only six attend- 
ants, should try to steal through the enemy's 
country, which was strongly fortified and closely 
guarded. Disguised as merchants, Ferdinand, 
acting as a servant, waiting on the table and 
caring for the horses, they traveled by night. 
Their only mishap was that Ferdinand, with a 
lover's forgetfulness, left at an inn his purse of 
gold. Finally they reached a castle occupied by 
Isabella's friends, but before they could make 
known their identity a sentinel hurled a large 
stone, which narrowly missed Ferdinand's head. 

When Ferdinand and Isabella met it was love 



168 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

at first sight. At once they ordered the wedding, 
but there were still two obstacles. Both of these 
future mighty monarchs were so poor that 
neither had money to^ pay the wedding expenses ; 
but finally they managed to borrow it. Then they 
were first cousins within that degree of relation- 
ship that the Catholic Church forbids matrimony 
without a papal dispensation. Old King John 
and the good friend, the Archbishop of Toledo, 
had foreseen this difficulty, and as the Pope was 
unfriendly they conveniently had a papal bull 
forged. Later, from a friendly pope, a genuine 
dispensation was obtained, but Isabella never 
fully forgave this fraud. Finally, in the presence 
of two thousand people, the marriage was cele- 
brated. After it was over Isabella sent word to 
her brother that it was done, and he forgave her. 

In a short time Isabella became Queen of 
Castile and Ferdinand King of Aragon, and to- 
gether they united Spain into one country over 
which they jointly ruled. Prescott epitomizes 
their reign by saying, "A Spaniard will fix his 
eye on the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella as the 
most glorious epoch in the annals of his country." 

Isabella was the good star of Ferdinand, and 
Ferdinand the valiant knight of Isabella. To- 
gether they lived, and loved, and ruled for thirty- 
five years. Then Isabella sickened and died. 
In accordance with her request, with much diffi- 
culty her remains were brought from the far 



THE ALHAMBRA 169 

North, amidst continuous rains and storms, and 
placed in a vault in a convent in the Alhambra. 
Ferdinand lingered for twelve years longer. He 
had lost his guiding genius and he degenerated. 
He married a giddy girl in her teens, and her 
gayeties embittered his life with the pangs of 
jealousy. Of that marriage the world little re- 
members. Finally, in his palace in the Alham- 
bra, Ferdinand died, and in the vault of the 
Alhambra convent he was restored to the com- 
panionship of his good Isabella. Later their 
grandson, Emperor Charles V., removed their 
bodies to the great Granada Cathedral. Here, 
together in one great tomb, they lie, and above 
them, chiseled in white marble, are their royally- 
robed recumbent figures. Though they expelled 
forever enchantment and romance from the 
Arabic palace of the Alhambra, yet their tombs 
in the Granada Cathedral remain as pilgrim 
shrines to lovers, and to lovers of romance. 



CHAPTER XV. 

ITALIAN FRAGMENTS. 

Bryant's lines in Thanatopsis might be changed 
to read: 

'To him, who in the love of Italy, 
Holds communion with her visible forms, 
She speaks a various language." 

Italy probably appeals more strongly to the 
different sides and sentiments of a person than 
any other country in the world. To his religious 
side she speaks through the association of St. 
Paul and St. Peter with the prisons of Rome, and 
through the memories of the sufferings of the 
early Christian martyrs in the catacombs and 
Colosseum. To the same side she also speaks 
through the highest representations of Christian 
art. To the Catholic she appeals through St. 
Peter's, the Vatican, and the Pope. The student 
of history, the lawyer, the law-giver, and the 
archeologist she addresses through the forums, 
triumphal arches, and numerous ruins. To the 
lover of art, and of the artistic, she is eloquent 
with her mosaics, paintings, statuary, and cathe- 
drals, with the masterpieces of Michelangelo, 
Raphael, and a host of other artists, any of whom 
would give renown to any country. 



ITALIAN FRAGMENTS 171 

For a man's lighter moods she has an equally 
attractive language. The sky, the water, the 
people all delight him. In this land of the hot 
sun and clear sky, the bright-hearted, good- 
natured people are always on exhibition. Par- 
ticularly is this so in Naples. Life has practi- 
cally no privacy here. The people eat, sleep, 
cook, wash, work, and make their toilets on the 
open street. For instance, the neighborhood hair- 
dresser combs and arranges a girl's hair (all these 
Italian girls take special care of their hair) in the 
middle of the sidewalk, while an intent mother 
near by goes hunting for wild game among the 
scanty locks of a squalling infant. Naples is an 
open-air museum of actual life. 

The Italian water and the sky make their ap- 
peal to the romantic side of one's nature. In all 
the world there is nothing more romantic than 
the lazy, dreamy, drifting in a Venetian gondola 
in the moonlight, when one's musings are given 
a half tone and form by the notes of a guitar or 
mandolin, or by the low voices of serenaders. 
The beautiful Bay of Naples, also, on a summer 
moonlight night has its charms., Then it is 
crowded with row-boats of pleasure-seekers, 
playing and singing, while the moon comes up 
over the sea on one side, and on the other there 
is the long, bright red streak of the new fissure 
on the side of Vesuvius, and on top of old Vesu- 
vius is the intermittent puff of smoke and flame. 



172 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

There is the appeal, also, to the more vigorous 
side of the romantic in a stroll by moonlight 
through the ruins of the Colosseum at Rome. 

One night as we walked through the long, 
dark arches out into the arena, brightened here 
and there by the moon that poured its beams 
through the lofty windows of this great structure, 
and looked from this arena, once the scene of the 
fights of gladiators and wild animals, and lighted 
in Nero's times by torches made of the blazing 
bodies of Christians, up into the seats where sat 
the emperor and his court, and then on up into 
the higher tiers, once crowded with the applaud- 
ing, merciless populace, then all life and bright- 
ness, but dark now except for the straggling 
moonbeams ; and silent now, except for the mew- 
ing of a stray, lonesome kitten, and also for the 
whirring of the wings of an encircling bat, there 
was aroused a strange uninterpretable feeling of 
the oppressive form of the romantic. 

To the lover of people, Naples is particularly 
attractive. There is in Naples crowded life and 
much poverty. One evening, as a young lady 
from Canandaigua stopped tO' admire the dark 
eyes of a smiling infant in the arms of a street 
urchin, I reached into my pocket to get a penny 
for the child, but before I could bring it out we 
were surrounded by a howling mob of boys and 
girls with and without infants in their arms, 
yelling, shrieking, laughing, dancing, and turn- 



ITALIAN FRAGMENTS 173 

ing handsprings, all with bright eyes intent on 
mine, anxious to attract a penny. Where they 
came from we could not tell. This motley, pic- 
turesque, shrieking, unwashed crowd of young- 
sters, with clothes torn and tattered, formed our 
escort back to the hotel, falling over themselves 
now and then as I would toss them a coin. The 
young lady was at first embarrassed, but she soon 
discovered the interest in the situation. We had 
admired the halo of infants' heads in Raphael's 
paintings, and here was the same halo that 
Raphael had found for his models. 

When we approached the hotel our escort made 
so much commotion that it brought the hotel 
porter, and it was amusing to see his vigorous 
onslaught onto our body-guard, and when he had 
scattered them to the four winds from whence 
they came, there was a triumphant look in his 
eyes as if he had rescued us from a dangerous 
army of the enemy, rather than from a playful 
horde of boys and girls who realize better than 
we the buying power of a penny. The wealth 
of Carnegie, though, would ameliorate little the 
poverty of Naples. 

These Italian boys are bright. One day I was 
walking down a narrow street in Amalfi where 
half a dozen boys were playing. One bigger 
boy hit another and made him cry. When I 
came up I told the little fellow to stop crying 
and handed him a few cents. When a little 



174 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

later I came back down the street a larger crowd 
of boys had gathered, and as I drew near they all 
struck one another and put their arms over their 
eyes pretending to weep, but keeping a peep- 
hole for me. When I stopped and laughed at 
their farce they laughed too, and cheered me as 
I passed on. 

Several weeks I spent pleasantly at Sorrento, 
a famous Italian winter and summer resort, fif- 
teen miles across the bay from Naples. It is 
situated on a high clifif and commands a beauti- 
ful view of the blue bay, of smoking Vesuvius, 
of rocky Capri, and of Naples in the distance; 
reminding one of the Italian proverb, "Vedi 
Napoli e poi mouri" ("See Naples and afterwards 
die"). Its charms attract all tourists to south- 
ern Italy, Avhile many Americans linger here. 
Marion Crawford has built here an imposing villa 
on the edge of a cliff that rises perpendicularly 
several hundred feet above the sea, where he 
writes his many novels. 

About Sorrento are many fine drives. One of 
the most famous in the world is from Sorrento 
to Amalfi. It follows the windings of the sea, 
along the top of terraces, or clinging to rocky 
mountain sides, frequently passing through tun- 
nels, and then on bridges high over fishing vil- 
lages of stone houses that nestle in deep ravines 
down by the sea. The drive is one continuous 
unfolding of beautiful views of mountain and sea. 



ITALIAN FRAGMENTS 175 

Up on mountain crags are ruined Saracen towers, 
and down in the sea are the Syren Islands of 
Ulysses, reminding one of the Moslem daring and 
of Greek mythology. 

These Italian roads are admirably constructed. 
They are as smooth and solid as an asphalt pave- 
ment, and though they pass over mountains the 
grades are so easy that the horses can trot the 
whole distance. 

Our carriage driver about Sorrento was a pleas- 
ant youth that understood a few English words. 
Asking him about the conspicuous absence of a 
front tooth, his face glowed as he explained that 
he had had a beautiful fight, that he had been very 
courageous, and had lost his tooth, but that he 
had broken more of his opponents. 

The eating at Sorrento was good. There are 
some exceptionally fine Italian dishes, like fresh 
fried sardines caught ofif the coast here, cooked 
with some pleasant-flavored sea weed. Macaroni 
and spaghetti are served in those delicious ways 
found only in southern Italy. Spaghetti is about 
as long and as thin as a shoe-string, and usually 
embarrasses an American trying to eat it by 
wrapping it around his fork, without cutting it, 
as an Italian does. An American lady told me 
that she was mortified when the spaghetti slip- 
ped off her fork, leaving one end in her stomach 
and the other on her plate. 



176 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

One day, driving up in the mountains, we were 
caught in a storm and took refuge in a village 
inn. My friends ordered beer, and asked our 
drivers what they would have to drink. They 
said that they would take beer also. The land- 
lord took us aside and told us that beer was too 
expensive to give drivers, but that he would give 
them wine instead. We told him that we wished 
to gratify them and to give them the beer. They 
afterwards told us that it was the first beer that 
they had tasted, and that they thought it had a 
very peculiar taste. They had drank always their 
Italian wines. 

I ordered a glass of milk. When I tasted 
it I remarked to my friends that it was very 
warm and very sweet, as if a sugar-bowl had 
been emptied into it. Thinking that it was some 
special Italian concoction, I drank it down. 
When I finished I turned and looked out of the 
window and saw there the goat that had been 
milched for me. They drive the goats up to 
the houses, and, in apartments frequently up- 
stairs, and milch them before the door. 

Not far from Sorrento is the Island of Capri 
with its famous Blue Grotto. It is a cavern 
washed in the side of the island by the sea, and 
is of about the size of a very large theater or 
auditorium. Small row-boats come out to the 
steamer and take one into the grotto. The 
entrance is so low and narrow that only in a 




In Sunny Europe 



ITALIAN FRAGMENTS 177 

quiet sea can one enter, and then only one boat 
can go in at a time, and every one, with ducked 
head, must sit on the bottom of the boat. A 
wave tried to enter with me and it mostly went 
down my neck, while the boat hit the top of the 
entrance. The sea has here a deep indigo color, 
and as the light comes into the grotto chiefly 
through the water, it gives the air, the roof, the 
boat, and the people a most weird and fantastic 
blue color. 

Life on Capri is pleasant. The climate is de- 
lightful. There are no excesses of heat or cold. 
There is an abundance of fruit. In the grove 
around the hotel grow the grape, the fig, the olive, 
the lemon, and the orange. When one wants 
fruit he can pick it from the vine or tree. 
Oranges ripen in November, but they remain on 
the tree a second year, and are picked as they 
are needed. As I roamed through the country 
I would give a peasant a little money to pick me 
a few oranges fresh from the tree. They seemed 
unusually delicious. Olives grow on all the ter- 
raced mountain sides, and with their gray-tinted 
leaves give a peculiar color to the landscape. The 
Italians are careful horticulturists, and about 
their trees and vines no weeds or grass grow, 
but the ground is carefully worked. 

Life in all of its forms here is attractive. At 
the excellence of the summer and country hotels 
I have been surprised. They are built of stone 



178 OUT OF THE WAY PLACES 

with walls two feet thick, keeping out the heat, 
but with casement windows that admit plenty of 
fresh air. The floors, even in the bedrooms, are 
of tile, and everything is exceptionally neat and 
clean. 

From Capri is to be seen one of the famous 
sunset views of the world. One evening I 
climbed the long, winding walk between high 
walls, up and down which chase lizards, to view 
the sunset from the old villa of the Roman Em- 
peror, Tiberias. It stands on a precipitous rock 
twelve hundred feet above the sea. We dropped 
some stones over the rock into the sea, and it 
took between ten and tw^elve seconds by our 
watch before the stones splashed. Over this 
same rock, Tiberias, in wrath or for amusement, 
is said to have thrown some of his slaves. On 
the summit of the rock now is a chapel, and a 
great gilded statue of the Savior, and a lone 
monk who points out the beauties of the scenery. 
Glorious was the view of the golden sunset, with 
its path of brilliancy across the sea. 

After viewing for a while the sunset, I wan- 
dered down a little distance among the ruins of 
the ancient villa, and came upon a swarthy old 
Italian woman with seamed face and one pro- 
jecting tooth. Playing about her was a little 
grandchild of three with a bright, peculiar flower 
which she presented to me, and for which I gave 
her a copper. I asked for more of these, so the 



ITALIAN FRAGMENTS 179 

old woman went off and gathered me a bunch of 
these beautiful flowers, which she told me was the 
flower of Capri. She directed me to present 
them to my bella signorita. She had also a 
green pod about which she talked with her hands, 
eyes, tooth, and tongue with great animation, and 
from her combined language I discovered that 
the green pod was a love charm, and that she 
wanted me to give it also to the bella signorita. 
The Italians about here are quite superstitious, 
and believe in the evil eye and all sorts of charms. 
I gratified the old woman's desire, for she seemed 
to be reliving her youthful romantic days as she 
described this love charm, and I took the pod and 
flower and presented them down at the hotel to 
an American bella signorita. The love charm 
from the old woman of the ruins of Tiberias' 
villa has, as yet, had no effect upon the American 
bella signorita. 



M^Y28 1909 



^ULE C 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 648 966 4 



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